Always the Baker, Finally the Bride Read online

  Emma quickly scribbled a title beneath the cake and smiled. There wasn’t another man on the planet she’d rather spend Once Upon a Time with.

  3

  Do you have a minute for me, boss?”

  Jackson glanced up from his computer screen to find his assistant, Susannah Littlefield, gripping the doorjamb, smiling at him.

  “Of course. Come in.”

  She smoothed the salt-and-pepper bun atop her head and removed the wire glasses from her knob of a nose as she approached him.

  “Have a seat,” he invited, waving toward the chairs on the other side of the desk. “What’s up?”

  “I’m not sure how to begin,” she admitted.

  “Well, Susannah. Nothing good ever starts with those words.”

  She chuckled. “I suppose it’s all in your perspective.”

  “After fifteen years together, I would think there’s very little we can’t talk about,” he reminded her. “Just spill it out on the table, and we’ll sort through it.”

  “All right,” she said with a nod. “I would like to retire in the spring, Jackson.”

  He felt the words thump to a landing somewhere at the top of his gut.

  “This coming spring?”

  Susannah chuckled again. “I thought I might. After the wedding.”

  Jackson raked through his hair with both hands before leaning back against the leather chair. Susannah looked so expectant, but he couldn’t think of anything to say in reply.

  “There’s time to hire someone else, and for me to train her in the basics of hotel business, and I think—”

  “Retire, Susannah? Really?”

  She nodded.

  “I can’t even remember what I did without you.”

  Susannah smiled at him, one of those maternal, knowing smiles she’d been smiling even before her dark hair entertained notions of silver strands.

  “I won’t leave you in the lurch,” she promised. “I’ll find someone just as accommodating . . .”

  “Not possible.”

  “. . . whose computer skills are top-notch . . .”

  “Well, I’ll need that, won’t I?”

  “. . . with outstanding references.”

  Jackson fidgeted with the pen in front of him while he processed the thought of losing Susannah. When he’d left his corporate career in pursuit of his late wife’s dream of transforming The Tanglewood Inn into a wedding destination hotel, this woman had blindly followed him into the great unknown. He’d once told her that he felt as if the two of them had entered a jungle armed with nothing but machetes and boots appropriate for wading through knee-deep mud. She’d done her fair share of swinging that machete since then, carving out a clear path toward a successful business. Without Susannah, and his sisters too, he never could have come through it with his sanity intact.

  And, of course, there’d been Emma by his side.

  Jackson sighed at the thought of her, and he checked the time on the clock that sat on the shelf by the door. She’d be home from Savannah in a few hours.

  “You’ll have to give me some time to digest this, Susannah.”

  “Of course,” she said, rising to her feet.

  “Can we talk about it again at the end of the week?”

  “We can.”

  “But in the meantime, I’d just like to thank you,” he told her in a hoarse, emotional tone. “You’re a treasure.”

  She paused at the door and smiled at him. “Thank you, Jackson. I’ve enjoyed working for you more than I can tell you.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  She started to turn away, but she stopped in her tracks. “Oh. Don’t forget you have lunch downstairs with your sister in half an hour.”

  He grinned. “I did forget, Susannah. Thank you, yet again.”

  As he slipped into his jacket and straightened his tie, Jackson wondered if Susannah’s impending departure wasn’t just the first sign that the end of an era approached. Perhaps the sale of The Tanglewood was simply a logical conclusion?

  “I’ll be back in an hour,” he told Susannah as he crossed through her office and headed down the hall.

  Jackson pressed the call button for the elevator, and it rang almost immediately. His thoughts still behind him with Susannah and her retirement announcement, he took a step forward the moment the door slid open. But in the same instant, a small tornado blew out of the car and smacked hard into him.

  “Whoa, whoa there,” he said, taking the little girl by the shoulders. “Watch where you’re going before you hurt yourself, or someone else, huh?”

  A coarse mane of reddish-brown hair masked half of her face, and she glared up at him with one chestnut eye. “Sorry,” she muttered halfheartedly, wriggling away from him.

  “Wait a second. Where are you headed in such a hurry, huh?”

  “Nowhere.”

  “Well, this floor isn’t for hotel guests,” he informed her. “This is our suite of offices. Where are you trying to go?”

  “I told you, Nowhere.”

  “Well, Nowhere is not on this floor, so let’s turn right around and get back on the elevator, all right?”

  She thought it over, shrugged impatiently, and appeared to toss herself back into the elevator. Jackson followed her and pressed the Lobby button. “What about you? What floor is your room on?”

  “Two,” she said without looking up at him.

  “Okay,” he replied, and he pressed the button for her. “And when we arrive at the second floor, maybe you could dial it back, just a little, so no one gets run over?”

  She chuckled. “Yeah, okay.”

  When they reached the second floor, the little girl slid through a minuscule opening and tromped down the hall before the doors even opened completely. Jackson shook his head as he pressed the button to close them again.

  It wasn’t until he reached Morelli’s and Norma waved him toward her table that his thoughts drifted back to his conversation with Susannah.

  “You look like you’ve had quite a morning,” his sister observed.

  “You have no idea.”

  “What is that all over your suit, Jackson?”

  He glanced down at the smears of white powder and grimaced. One of them bore a strange resemblance to a small hand, and he groaned as he dusted it off.

  “A small hurricane barreled into me on the elevator,” he said. “I have no idea what she’d been into to make this mess.”

  “Is she a guest?”

  “I assume so. She said her room is on the second floor, but she was trying to get off the elevator on four.”

  “Ahh,” Norma nodded with a grin. “An explorer.”

  “A messy one.”

  “I would say so. Have a seat and let’s get a little lunch into you. Now tell me, when is Emma Rae due back?”

  “Later today,” he replied, still brushing the front of his jacket as he sat down. “Seems like she’s been gone for a month. Hey, did you know Susannah plans to retire?”

  “Oh, she talked to you, hmm?”

  Jackson looked up at Norma and glared. “You knew?”

  “She may have mentioned it.”

  The youngest of his three sisters, Norma was the one who knew Jackson best. In turn, the glint in her hazel eyes, and the way she brushed back her sandy hair as she opened the menu before her, told him all he needed to know. Like everything else around his hotel, Norma had no doubt known about Susannah’s plans even before she’d cemented them.

  “Anything else I’m not privy to around here, Norma Jean?”

  She giggled without answering his question. “I’m thinking . . . the beef stew in a sourdough bowl. What do you think?”

  “I think you’d make a lousy spy. You can’t bluff worth a dollar.”

  “I’m so proud of you, Em. Do you want me to order extra flowers for the cake, or will you make them out of sugar?”

  Emma grimaced at Sherilyn and shrugged.

  “Don’t tell me.”

  “Well, I was sold on t
his cake last night. It just seemed to fit Jackson and me so perfectly. But in the light of day—”

  Sherilyn’s groan cut her words in two.

  “What did I miss?” Fee asked as she blew through the front door. Sherilyn’s expression drove her to pivot onto another topic. “I’ve got all of the bags in the car. Who’s driving, Emma? Me or you?”

  “You’d better drive,” Sherilyn interjected. “Emma Rae is preoccupied. We might end up in Key West.”

  “Preoccupied with what? I thought things were great since she decided on the . . .” Fee paused, looking from Sherilyn to Emma and back again. “Ohhhh. That’s not good.”

  “I just think there might be—” Emma began, and Fee pressed a hand to her shoulder, nudging her toward the front door. Sherilyn waddled past her and took the front porch steps with caution as Emma pressed the security code into the keypad next to the door. “—you know,” she continued as she and Fee followed Sherilyn, “I just thought there might be another cake that is more representative of our whole relationship, you know?”

  “You’ve got shotgun,” Fee told her as they parted at the rear bumper of the Explorer. “Let Sherilyn sit in the back so she can put her feet up.”

  “Feet!” Sherilyn exclaimed. “They’re nothing but big waterlogged stumps at the ends of my calves.”

  “Anything you need for the drive back?” Emma asked her.

  “I don’t know,” Sherilyn began, rolling her eyes upward as she twisted her red hair into an elastic band. “Maybe some water. But then that might mean we’ll have to stop in a few minutes. Maybe a snack instead. What do you think, Em? What snack is most representative of a pregnant woman whose best friend is plucking her last nerve?”

  Emma began to laugh.

  “Maybe a Snickers. Or wait! Some sesame sticks. Do we have any of those left? And do they really represent my full need for a snack?”

  Reaching over the back of the seat, Emma slapped at the air in front of Sherilyn. “All right. I get it. I’ll make a decision soon. I promise.”

  “Will you? Will you, really?” Sherilyn asked. “Because there’s no hurry or anything. I can always finish up these pesky wedding details from the delivery room.”

  “The cake is my thing,” Emma reminded her. “You just worry about the rest of it.”

  “Oh. Okay. I’ll do that. It’s not like it matters if everything fits together with some cohesive—”

  “Sheesh, Sher!” Emma cried. “Hormonal much?”

  “Oooookay!” Fee exclaimed. “That’s enough of that, or I’ll leave you two by the side of the road to duke it out.”

  Sherilyn growled loudly, and Emma laughed at her, pushing off her sandals and propping her feet on the dashboard as she closed her eyes.

  “Ooh, you know what I have a taste for?” Sherilyn asked them, and Emma moaned. “Remember that fudge Pearl told us about?”

  “Anton’s secret recipe?” Emma teased.

  “Yes. It sounded like heaven, didn’t it?”

  “Yes. But you heard Pearl. To get that recipe, you’ll have to,” Emma began, and Fee joined her as they completed it in stereo, “—pry it out of his cold, dead hands.”

  They all laughed, and Sherilyn began to whine, “But it sounded amazing, didn’t it? Did she say it had marshmallows in it?”

  “Marshmallow cream,” Fee corrected.

  “Ohhh,” she whimpered. “I need chocolate. Do either of you have any chocolate?”

  Emma shoved the sunglasses up the bridge of her nose and tuned her friend out, deciding instead to simply trust Fee to steer them home.

  Four hours and five bathroom stops later, Sherilyn groaned again, this time with a slight whistle to it, and she followed it up with quick, noisy puffs of frantic breathing.

  “Need another backrub?” Emma asked without turning around.

  Her indecipherable reply came through more puffs.

  “Sher?”

  When Emma twisted to peer into the back seat, Sherilyn’s wide turquoise eyes looked back at her from within a completely bunched-up face.

  “Are you all right?”

  Sherilyn shook her head with frenzied distress.

  “No?”

  She shook her head again, gripping her enormous belly with both hands.

  “Oh, Sher. No.”

  Sherilyn nodded with the same frenzy.

  “It’s time? But there’s still three weeks!”

  Sherilyn’s expression turned almost demonic, driving Emma’s immediate apology: “Okay, sorry. So we’re early.”

  Emma and Fee looked at each other for a resolution that neither of them had.

  “How far are we from home?” Fee asked.

  Emma checked out the scenery flying past them. “About twenty minutes. Sher? Can you wait twenty minutes?”

  Sherilyn replied with a defeated shrug, followed by the shake of her head. “I don’t know.”

  “Okay. Okay.” Emma struggled to control her own breathing before urging Sherilyn to do the same. “Take slow, easy breaths, all right? Slow and easy.” Turning to Fee, she whispered, “Step on it.”

  The motor revved as Fee complied.

  She fumbled with her purse and pulled out her cell phone and dialed. “Andy. It’s Emma.”

  “Hey, Emma,” he replied, clueless.

  “We’re about twenty minutes from Roswell,” she told him, “and I think Sherilyn is in labor.”

  After a brief silence, Sherilyn’s husband, clueless no more, raised the pitch of his voice several octaves as he shouted at her. “I’ll call the doctor. I’ll meet you at the hospital. Is she all right? Can I talk to her?”

  Emma glanced back at Sherilyn and made an executive decision. “I don’t think that’s a good idea at the moment, Andy. We’ll see you at the emergency room as soon as we can. Call the doctor first. Remember that her bag is packed and tucked behind the driver’s seat of your car. It has her iPod in it, and she’ll need that. We programmed it with relaxation songs . . . and a little Seger. Meet us there, all right? Are you able to meet us there?”

  “Okay. Okay. She’s not driving, is she?”

  “Of course not. Fee’s behind the wheel.”

  “Let me talk to her.”

  “Fee?”

  “Yes! Pass the phone to her, Emma.”

  She did, and Fee answered tentatively. “Hello?” Emma heard the hum of Andy’s very loud voice from the other side of the front seat. “Yes, okay,” Fee said after a moment. “Dude. Chill. I’ve got this.”

  “Uh . . . Emma?”

  Emma looked back at Sherilyn, whose eyes were wider than she’d ever seen them before. The look of sheer panic as she glanced down at her belly caused Emma to follow suit.

  “Your water broke?”

  Sherilyn nodded, and her eyes puddled with tears.

  “Her water broke,” Emma told Fee as she flicked the buckle on her seat belt and tossed it aside. Heaving her entire body up and over the armrest, she awkwardly crawled through the small opening between the seats.

  “What are you—youch!!—What’re you doing? I’m driving here!” Fee cried as Emma used Fee’s shoulder as a push-off point to catapult into the backseat beside Sherilyn.

  “It’s going to be all right,” she promised, rubbing Sherilyn’s rigid hand where it lay clamped to her belly. “Just relax. You’re doing fine, and we’ll be there very soon. Does it hurt?”

  “Only at the beginning of the pains. I just thought I’d eaten too much bologna at breakfast.”

  “You had bologna for breakfast?”

  “I had a taste for it.”

  “Where did you get bologna?”

  Sherilyn’s wide eyes flashed suddenly, and she began pushing out short puffs of air through clenched teeth.

  “Contraction?” Emma asked.

  Sherilyn nodded again and, before she knew it, Emma had joined her in the strange rhythmic ritual.

  “Chhoo-chhoo-chhoo-chhoo.”

  She checked the clock on the dashboard as Sherilyn m
uttered Emma’s name and squeezed her hand so tightly that Emma’s entire body coiled into it. She pressed both feet against the back of Fee’s seat.

  “Hey!” Fee exclaimed.

  “Sorry.”

  Tendrils of moist red hair framed Sherilyn’s pale white face, and Emma smoothed them back with her free hand as she whispered words of comfort to her friend.

  “It’s all right, Sher . . . We’re almost there . . . You’re doing great.”

  Once the contraction appeared to pass, Emma scanned the surroundings beyond the car window. “We’re just a few minutes out,” she told Sherilyn softly. “Just hang in there, okay?”

  “Okay,” she agreed. “Is Andy meeting us there?”

  “He shouldn’t be too long after us.”

  “Oh, good. I’ll bet he’s . . .” Sherilyn gasped. “Fraaaaan-tic.”

  “Another one?” Emma asked, and she checked the clock again.

  “Emmm-mma,” Sherilyn squealed.

  “I know. I know. Just hang on, sweetie. Hang on.”

  Emma perked up when she saw the square sign with a large H in the middle. At last, North Fulton Hospital, right around the corner.

  “When Fee stops out front, you stay right here, okay?” she instructed Sherilyn. “I’ll get a wheelchair and push it right up to the car door. You just keep on breathing, okay?”

  Sherilyn shot her a frenzied nod. “Chhoo-chhoo-chhoo-chhoo.”

  “Good girl.”

  The tires squealed as they flew past the blue-and-white entrance sign toward the emergency room. The Explorer hadn’t come to a full stop when Emma threw open the door and jumped from the backseat into a full run.

  “Wheelchair,” she shouted at the woman behind the desk. “Pregnant woman in labor. I need a wheelchair!”

  Before the nurse had a chance to reply, Emma spotted an empty wheelchair parked near the entrance. She jogged toward it, flicked off the brakes and pulled it behind her as she ran out the door.

  “Here,” she said, breathless. “Can you get out?”

  Sherilyn nodded, and she flung her legs out of the back seat. But instead of rushing into the chair, she stopped and stared at it.

  “What are you waiting for?” Emma asked her. “Let’s go.”

  “Emma, what kind of wheelchair is that? I think that’s made for a child.”