Always the Baker, Never the Bride (39 page)

“I guess. Blah blah blah.”

“Kind of ironic, coming from someone who’s had a decade-long turtle race toward love himself.”

Emma giggled. “Very ironic.”

“So there’s not really an offer on the table from Granville.” Fee sighed.

“That’s the interesting part.”

Her eyes darted toward Emma, and she waited.

“Granville did some research, and now he
really wants me to come to work for him
.”

Fee pressed her lips together and her eyes widened.

“He’s offered to buy my three-year contract from Jackson, and double my salary, and pay my expenses to
move to Paris for six months
.”

Emma raised her palm in the air, expecting a high-five slap. When it didn’t come, she lowered her hand and shrugged.

“Well, what do you think of that?”

After a long moment’s thought, Fee cocked her head and sighed. “I think I’d like to know what you think first.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning … Are you going to abandon everything for a trunk full of francs and a view of the Eiffel Tower?”

“Fee—”

“Really!” Fee exclaimed, then popped up from the couch and stood there, at the other end of it. “Is this what you’re telling me, Emma?”

“Fiona.”

“And forget me for a minute. You would do that to Jackson? To his sisters? Just to … to tango with … with … a
Frenchman
?!”

“Settle down, will you? We’re just talking here.”

“Talking about what?” she asked her. “What exactly are we talking about here?”

“We’re talking about a successful French businessman looking at me and seeing someone worth a gazillion American dollars to him. That’s all. I am sharing that excitement with my best friend. This guy looked at me … at what we do, Fee, and he thought it was valuable enough to buy out a three-year contract and double my salary! Do you know what that means? Well, I’ll tell you. It means that two girls making pastries at The Backstreet Bakery one day are now
on the map
the next day!”

“So you’re not thinking about accepting his offer, then?”

Emma stretched out and propped her feet on the sofa and crossed them at the ankle, then folded her arms behind her head and grinned. “Of course not.”

Fee picked up Emma’s feet and nudged them back to the floor before occupying the space where they’d been on the other end of the couch.

Emma leaned over and took her friend’s hand and jiggled it. “Fee. We’re building something here. You and me, together. I’m not going anywhere that you aren’t going too.”

Fee smiled. “Well, you’ve just saved yourself from a hard sock in the gut.”

“Besides, not only wouldn’t I ever think of doing that to you, but I couldn’t do it to—”

When she paused, Fee laughed.

“Jackson?”

Emma tilted into half a shrug. “I love him, Fee.”

Fee straightened. “You love him? Like with sugar sprinkles and chocolate sauce, and the whole big shebang?”

She nodded. “Something awful. I think this is the first time I’ve said it out loud, but my heart’s been screaming from the top of its lungs for weeks now.”

“Yeah. I’ve heard it a few times,” Fee admitted. “I think it’s like when you shout down into the Grand Canyon. It echoes for all of the rest of the world to hear.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh, yeah.”

Emma groaned and tossed her head back against the arm of the sofa and flung her feet up into Fee’s lap. “What am I gonna do, Fee?”

Fee patted Emma’s ankles several times. “You know how those burros take you right down into the canyon?”

Emma grimaced. “Not really. I’ve never been to the Grand Canyon.”

“Well, they offer you all kinds of ways to get your canyon on. In your case, you don’t want to take a helicopter ride over Jackson, Em. You want to rent a donkey and go right down in there and get him.”

Emma’s eyes narrowed, and she gave her forehead a brisk rub. “English, Fiona.”

“You love him, right?”

“Right.”

“Does he love you back?”

“Some days, I think he might.”

“Well, I know he does.”

“Really?”

“And we’re just going to go digging into that big old cavern known as Jackson’s heart and
excavate
!”

“How?”

“Prayer.”

Emma dropped her hands from her face and stared at her friend. “Pardon?”

“What, you don’t think prayer works? How do you think you two have gotten this far? Jackson’s sisters, Miguel, me, Peter … We’ve all been praying you into this canyon, Em. Now you just grab Jackson, and we’ll pray you both right back out to solid ground.”

Each of them jumped at the knock on the door, and Fee grabbed Emma’s hand.

“Let’s start now.”

Dragging her hand from Fee’s grasp, Emma tripped toward the window and peered outside to see Jackson’s car parked at the curb behind Fee’s. She twirled around and pulled a face of panic.

“Is it him?” Fee asked, and she nodded.

Emma took in a deep breath before she tugged open the door. Fee slid into her jacket.

“Can I talk to you?” Jackson asked Emma, and she nodded. When he noticed Fee behind her, he hesitated. “I’m interrupting.”

“Nah,” Fee said, and she eased past him. “We were just talking about the Grand Canyon. Have you ever been, Jackson?”

“When I was a kid,” he remarked.

“Overwhelming, isn’t it?”

“I guess.”

“But worth the trip. Don’t you agree?”

“Oooo-kay!” Emma interjected, and she crossed back to Fee, tugged her by the arm, and nudged her to the door. “See you tomorrow, Fee.”

She chuckled as she pulled the door shut behind her. “Later, you two. Happy trails.”

Emma leaned against the closed door and looked up at Jackson. She heaved in a deep breath and then used it to puff air up under her bangs to lift them out of her eyes. Then she just waited.

And waited.

Finally, she padded across the living room and eased into the chair. She sat on the edge and crossed her legs, then folded her hands and rested them on her lap.

“You wanted to talk to me?”

Jackson just stood there, staring at her. He looked like he was about to say something, then he sighed and put his hands on his hips. When she was almost certain he’d turned to stone in that position, he dropped his hands and sighed again.

“It was a date,” he said, his voice tight against his throat.

“I beg your pardon?”

“The football game,” he said as he slowly approached her. Sitting down on the corner of the coffee table, he added, “It was a date.”

“Really.”

“Really. And if you’re actually going to still be around in the future, I’d like to ask you out on another one.”

“And it took you all week to sort that out, did it?”

“Well,” he began, and then swallowed hard before continuing. “It was really my talk with your father that—”

“My father!”

She stared him down until the heat of it melted him. “He told me about his first wife, and how she died unexpectedly.”

Emma’s heart beat double-time. “He told you that? Daddy never talks about her.”

“I think he thought it might help me. You know. After Desi.”

Emma nodded, wondering what her father had in mind with a conversation like that one.

“And did it?”

“What?”

“Help.”

“Oh. Yes, actually. It did.” Emma sighed. “I’m glad.”

“He doesn’t want me to make the same mistakes with you that he made with your mother.”

Emma thought that over. “There are too many to choose from. You’ll have to be more specific.”

“All that really matters, Emma, is that I have very deep feelings for you, and I haven’t been able to reconcile them to the residual ones still banging around in here.” He tapped his chest several times, and then arched his eyebrow at her. “You know what I mean?”

“I think so.”

The rhythm of her pulse started to pick up as Emma speculated about where the conversation might be headed.

“Are you going to leave, Emma? Do you want out of your contract with me?”

She smiled. “No, Jackson. I don’t want to go anywhere.”

“Are you sure?”

“Well, it was a great offer,” she told him, shaking her head. “It’s not easy to turn it down.”

“But you’re going to turn it down,” he stated matter-of-factly.

“I already have.”

“Can I ask why?” he said softly, and then he reached out and took her hand between both of his. “Why do you want to stay?”

“Why do you
want me to
stay?”

Jackson grinned. “You’re not going to make this easy on me, are you?”

“Not at all.”

He broke eye contact for a moment, and she got the sense that he was trying to compose himself. She considered putting him out of his misery and just telling him how she felt. Maybe putting it right out there on the table would—

“The thing is,” he said, cutting her inner dialogue right in two, “I love you.”

Her eyes popped open wide, and her jaw dropped slightly, leaving her mouth open in a tiny round O.

“Huh?”

He smiled. “I love you. And I don’t want to make the mistake of not telling you, not showing you, because I think a woman like you needs—”

Emma lifted her free hand and snapped it to his mouth, holding it there until Jackson fell silent.

“And tomorrow morning when you wake up and remember that you’ve said this to me,” she began, pausing to catch her breath, “are you going to retreat into After Care for two weeks? Start avoiding me? Not call me?”

“After Care?” he repeated through her fingers, and she dropped her hand and groaned.

“It’s what men do,” she said. “Advance, retreat, advance, retreat. Are you gonna retreat again, Jackson?”

“I am not.”

She sighed, and her shoulders dropped considerably. “How do you know? How can you say that now?”

“I just can.”

“But later when you think it over—”

“After I think it over, I’ll be inclined to freak out a little bit,” he acknowledged. “And then I’ll remember the glimmer in your eyes and the curve of your smile.” He paused to run a finger down the line of her jaw, and he grinned at her. “I’ll remember what your hair smells like when I hold you very close, and I’ll remind myself how God blessed me one rainy afternoon and gave me the sudden craving for something sweet, and I walked into that little bakery and found you.”

She opened her mouth to object, but now it was Jackson’s turn to silence Emma, and he placed two fingers over her lips.

“You had flour on your cheek,” he recalled. “And then later, when you came to The Tanglewood and tripped over the linens in the lobby, you had icing all over your nose and chin.”

She chuckled, and Jackson caressed her cheek before drawing his hand away.

“God blessed my life early on,” he told her. “Desiree was the best thing that had ever happened to me. When I lost her, I was quite certain I’d never find that again.”

The
rat-a-tat-tat
in her ears turned out to be her own heartbeat, and Emma’s eyes misted over with a glaze of unexpected, prickly emotion.

“Why God has chosen to bless me for a second time, only He knows for sure,” he went on. “But I’m not going to take it for granted. I’m not going to lose it by tripping over my own two feet. I love you, Emma Rae Travis. And what I need to know is … Do you love me too?”

Emma jumped to her feet, propelled by sheer instinct. Her head spun a little as she paced behind the sofa for a lap or two and then made her way to the window and stood in front of it, staring out at the street.

She blinked twice, pushing the tears standing in her eyes to cascading streams down the slope of her face. When she blinked a third time, she was able to bring Fee’s car into focus where it was still parked in front of Jackson’s. Fee was seated behind the wheel, very still, her head bowed, and Emma realized that her friend was out there …
praying.

A sudden burst of laughter popped out of her, and Emma spun around to find Jackson standing close behind her, his eyes bearing down on her with the embers of a very serious fire burning in them.

“I feel woozy,” she told him on a raspy whisper, and Jackson blinked hard.

“Oh. Do you need something to eat? Can I get your monitor for you?”

“No,” she replied, and she lifted one shoulder into an awkward shrug.

“What is it then?”

Emma grinned at him timidly as she admitted, “I love you, too, Jackson.”