Always the Baker, Never the Bride (21 page)

“Oh, I love coffee,” she told him as they ambled into the restaurant.

Jackson held her chair for her, then grabbed a clean cup from behind the bar and set it down before her.

“Do you need cream and sugar?” he asked as he filled her cup.

“I like it black.”

“So do I,” he said with a grin.

“You own this hotel,” she said, as if just catching up to the information. “And your name is … What’s your name again?”

“Jackson Drake.”

“That’s a very nice name. Like a hero in a romance novel.” Jackson chuckled. “I’m nothing like that at all,” he assured her.

“Well, you’re handsome enough,” she declared, and when she smiled back at him, her wrinkles formed perfect arches around both sides of her face.

He estimated she was in her eighties, at least, and he wondered why she was dressed in full grand ballroom garb at ten-thirty on a Friday morning.

“I interrupted you, didn’t I?” she asked.

“No. Not at all.”

“You were deep in thought when I first saw you. Looking like a man who’s lost something and you can’t remember where.”

Jackson felt a squeeze around his heart. “I know where,” he told her. “I just don’t stand a chance of getting it back.” And he instantly wondered why on earth he’d shared such a thing with a total stranger.

“I know that feeling,” she remarked. “I have that feeling much of the time.”

Jackson smiled at her.

“You know what someone told me recently, though?”

“What’s that?”

“When a door closes, God will always open a window.”

He nodded. “That’s very positive thinking. Nothing wrong with that.”

“I think I read this in the Scriptures,” she revealed, scrunching up her face and flexing her index finger, as if trying to remember was almost painful. “Do not remember the former things … Behold, I will do a new thing… . I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”

Jackson shifted in his chair, but smiled politely.

“So when we can’t find the thing that we lost, there’s hope that God will bring something new to replace it,” she explained. “I think I believe that. Do you, Jackson?”

The familiarity with which she’d called him by name and the sparkle in her once-vibrant blue eyes captured him for a moment. He tilted his shoulder upward in a shrug. “I’m not sure.”

“Oh, but you must believe it, boy. If God went to the trouble of getting it into the Bible, then there must be some real meat to it, you know?”

Jackson narrowed his eyes and regarded her for one long moment. “Who was it that you were meeting, ma’am?”

She seemed rather lost, and she didn’t reply. Instead, she looked around the room, focusing on things in spurts. First the window, then the table, then the painting on the far wall. When she looked back at Jackson, her expression was sad and somewhat forlorn.

“I’m sorry,” she asked with a timid lilt. “Do I know you?”

He reached across the table and took her trembling hand. “Jackson Drake.”

“That’s a nice name,” she told him again. “Did you want to dance?”

He patted her hand tenderly, realizing that there was much more going on with this woman than eccentricity. “Do you know where you live?” he asked her.

She thought about it for a moment and was just about to answer when Emma appeared in the doorway.

“Aunt Sophie?”

Sophie reeled in her chair and ignited with a joyous smile. “Emma Rae! You’ve come to see me! I knew you would, darlin’!”

“Aunt Soph, what are you doing here?” Emma asked, and her eyes met Jackson’s for a frozen moment before she made her way to the table and sat down beside the woman. “I’ve missed you so much.”

Sophie sank into Emma’s embrace, her tiara poking Emma’s jaw and neck.

“Did Mother drive you here, Aunt Sophie?” she asked. Then, looking to Jackson, “Is my mother here?”

Jackson shook his head and then shrugged. “Your aunt just walked in the front door.”

“Alone?” she mouthed, and he nodded.

Sophie reached across the table and patted Jackson’s face with her satin-gloved hand. “This darling man has been keeping me company while I waited for you. I knew you’d come, Emma Rae.”

“Of course I did,” Emma said in a soothing voice, and Jackson looked on as she kissed her aunt’s cheek several times and rubbed her shoulder. “You know I always want to see you.”

Five Ways to Give Special Consideration to Your Elderly Guests When Planning Your Wedding

1. When choosing the venue, be sure to take mobility into consideration. For instance:
   
   • Are the restrooms and main rooms accessible for people with wheelchairs, canes, or walkers?
     
   • If you’re planning an outdoor wedding, you may want to choose a level surface rather than the top of a hill, and consider assigning escorts to your elderly guests to assist them.
     
2. Plan reception seating for elderly guests away from the loudspeakers and closer to the restroom facilities.
   
3. Consider reserving the closest parking places for your elderly guests.
   
4. Ask the DJ to include some classics in the reception music choices, such as Frank Sinatra, Etta James, and Duke Ellington.
   
5. Consider how to pay tribute to your older guests. For instance:
   
   • If your grandparents are in attendance, include them in one of the spotlight dances.
     
   • Perhaps ask them for their favorite or special song, and plan a bride-and-groom dance to that selection.
     
   • Include the success of their marriages in one of the champagne toasts at the reception.
     

13

E
mma pushed the tray to the center of the table and leaned in toward it while Fee poured coffee, and Jackson and Sophie looked on.

“The bride says that she and the groom love cake, but neither of them likes frosting,” she told them. “The groom even spent his life having birthday
fruit pies
and birthday
parfaits
to celebrate instead of cake because of his aversion to sweet icing. So here’s what I’ve come up with for them to sample.”

Large slices of three unique cakes were placed on bone china plates, with several ornate forks in a pile next to them. Sophie’s tiara now leaned against the edge of the tray.

“This one is an apple cake layered with vanilla custard and streusel filling,” she told them. “It’s topped with a brown sugar and cinnamon crumble.”

Jackson was first to grab a fork. Turning it on its side, he sliced off a bite and handed the fork to Sophie.

“Oooooh, darlin’!” she exclaimed when she tasted it. “This is the best one.”

Emma chuckled. “You haven’t tasted the others yet, Aunt Sophie.”

“Oh, I see.”

Jackson nodded emphatically after taking a bite for himself. “She’s right. This one’s the best,” he stated with a grin.

“I think so too,” Sophie stated, nodding.

“The second one,” Emma declared, “is an orange-pistachio cake with a champagne-and-chocolate ribbon running through it. It will be stacked in fluted layers, and lightly sprinkled with powdered sugar.”

“Ohhh!” Jackson groaned. “Emma, this is
fan-TAS-tic
.”

“Oooooh, this one’s the best,” Sophie decided.

“She’s right. This one. Best.”

“Well, wait a minute!” Emma cackled. “There’s one more.”

“I’m not sure my heart can take it,” Jackson teased. “These are phenomenal.” He took a sip of coffee. “I’m just cleansing the palate.”

“Good idea,” said Sophie, and she followed suit, but she swished the coffee around in her mouth before swallowing.

Fee gave Emma a quick poke in the ribs with her elbow. “This next one’s actually the best,” she told them.

“The third cake is a very simple yellow cake with thin layers, filled with alternating types of fruit cream. They’re very subtle.”

“There’s banana cream,” Fee said, looking like a scientist as she used the handle of a fork like a pointer, “and raspberry cream, and then blueberry.”

“It’s drizzled with a champagne-amaretto glaze,” Emma said.

Jackson held his fork in his mouth for several seconds after inserting it, then closed his eyes and began to make an odd purring sound from deep within his throat.

“He likes it,” Fee told her, and Emma watched him carefully.

“Looks like.”

“I prefer the other one,” Sophie announced. “I don’t like amaretto.”

“No?” Emma asked. She sat down beside her aunt and squeezed her hand. “I never knew that.”

“Mama used to sneak it when she thought nobody was looking. The alcohol, not the cake.”

Emma giggled. “This is different, Aunt Sophie. This is the flavor of amaretto without the alcohol.”

“Oh.” Sophie paused to consider the point, and then shook her head. “No. I like the pistachio best of all. I’d like that for my birthday cake.”

“You got it.”

Jackson finally pulled the fork from his mouth, but he did it slowly, between pressed lips. When he opened his eyes, he shook his head and groaned again. “Mmm-mmmmmm. That one’s my favorite.”

“Are you given to drinking, Jackson?” Sophie asked him seriously.

“Not at all, Sophie. But I really like this cake.”

“I like the pistachio.”

“That one’s good too.”

He dug his fork into the champagne-amaretto cake for another chunk. “I don’t know how you make these things without eating them,” he told Emma. “I’d be in a coma several times a year if I were you. I have no willpower when it comes to sweets.”

“I taste them,” she admitted. “But never more than a bite or two.”

“And only after a full meal,” Fee added. “She tolerates sugar better when it’s combined with protein.”

“My nurse,” Emma said with a grin, nodding toward Fee.

“You’re a nurse, Fee?” Sophie asked, wide-eyed. “Do you scare your patients when you dress like that?”

Jackson and Emma both snickered as Fee responded by forming her lips into a wordless round O. Before she could answer, their conversation was halted in its tracks as Avery rushed through the doorway toward them.

“Sophie!” she cried. “What were you thinking?”

“Have you met my sister?” she asked Jackson.

“I have. Hello, Mrs. Travis. Why don’t you join us for coffee? Everything is just fine here.”

Avery’s expression melted down a few notches as Jackson held her eyes.

“Yes,” she said at last, then she sat down in the empty chair at the foot of the table, Sophie to her right and Jackson to her left. “Coffee would be lovely.”

Fee produced another cup and filled it while Avery sat there watching her sister sip her own coffee.

“Sophie,” Jackson piped up. “Have you seen our courtyard?”

“Do you have one?”

“We do. Would you like to go for a stroll with me and see it?”

“That would be nice. Will you all excuse us? My friend Jackson would like me to walk with him.”

Emma marveled at Jackson’s gentle way with her aunt, and she watched them amble arm-in-arm until they reached the lobby, turning left through the glass doors to the courtyard.