A Recipe for Reunion

“Nice to meet you.” They shook hands. “How’s Georgette doing?”

“Better, thanks for asking.” He didn’t want to be rude, but customers were still waiting. He turned to Steph. “Would you mind looking after those folks there, Steph?”

She stared at him, her cheeks tinting darker and darker. The baby patted her hair as if reminding her to breathe. She handed the squirming child back to Isabel. “Excuse me.”

“I’d better get going.” The mother paused. “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to distract Stephanie.”

“It’s not your fault,” he said, feeling bad now for interrupting. Isabel was a customer, too, after all. But time was money...

He glanced at Steph. She moved slowly, as if she were picking flowers in a field rather than filling orders. If that was her usual pace, he could imagine how much business the bakery lost on a daily basis. And now, Steph was chatting up the next person in line and—

Was she giving out free cookies?

Aaron didn’t have time to ask, though, because the contractor had come up and was telling him he had to leave on his next call. Aaron thanked him and saw him out the door, but not before Steph ducked out lickety-split from behind the counter and handed him a coffee and a brown bag. Why couldn’t she move that fast to serve paying customers? Aaron thought irritably.

“Fresh doughnut and coffee for you,” she told the man happily. “No one leaves Georgette’s empty-handed.”

The contractor’s face brightened “Oh, I couldn’t—”

“Of course you can.” She pushed the treats at him. “It’s cold out there. You need to keep warm, and this is just the thing to do it.”

The man chuckled. “I hope I get this job if this is the daily take-home.” He shook Aaron’s hand. “Give me a call. We can play with some numbers if we have to.”

He left. Aaron turned to tell Steph to stop handing out freebies, but her look froze his tongue. “Excuse me, I have customers.”

He might have snapped back at her, but that would’ve been unprofessional. Still, Georgette’s wouldn’t survive if this was how business was conducted every day. Who knew how much Stephanie was costing his grandmother? He wasn’t about to throw any accusations around, though. Not without evidence. After all, he was nothing if not thorough.

* * *

SWEAT DRIPPED OFF the tip of Steph’s nose as she polished the countertops and fumed.

Aaron had always been a stick-in-the-mud, but now he’d become a grade-A prick. Embarrassing her in front of Isabel. Really! Where did he get off telling her what to do? He didn’t own Georgette’s. He wasn’t her boss. He’d only arrived yesterday.

“I’m done here,” Kira said, removing her apron. “Is it okay if I take off? I have a lot of homework.”

“Sure thing.” She put on a smile for Kira’s benefit. The timid but eager girl didn’t need to be exposed to her bad mood. “Thanks. You did great today.”

“Hey, can I ask you a question?” Kira moved closer and glanced at the closed office door where Aaron counted the till. “Is Aaron taking over for Georgette?”

Steph sucked in her lower lip. “I don’t know.” I hope not. “He’s got plans to open a bookstore where the dining room is. I’m not sure how that’ll work with the bakery attached.”

Kira wrinkled her nose. “If they do renos it’s going to make a huge mess. How’re you gonna bake?”

Steph hadn’t thought of that, but Kira was right. They’d lose all kinds of business while Aaron worked on his precious bookshop, and Georgette’s couldn’t afford that. They were barely breaking even as it was.

She had no choice. She had to talk to Georgette. Aaron would ruin the business with these plans of his, and it was up to Stephanie to stop him.

CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_a7495287-376c-51c1-bdbd-0789d80362ea)

“WHAT ARE YOU SAYING, exactly?” Georgette peered up at Aaron over her plate of spaghetti.

“I just want to know if you’ve ever noticed any discrepancies at the register.” There was no way to broach the topic lightly. He was concerned by what he’d seen today. The till had been short nearly fifty dollars, and the ledgers for the past two months showed a steady decline in revenue. How was Gran keeping up with the bills?

“Nothing out of the ordinary,” she said, cutting her noodles with her spoon. Aaron had noticed she had a little difficulty chewing—he’d have to ask the doctor about that at her next appointment.

“So you’re always short at the till?” he prodded.

“Short, over, both. It all works out in the end.” She shrugged. “I assume it’s simply my old eyes counting wrong.”

“Does Steph ever count the till?”

“Occasionally. She certainly would’ve while I’ve been away.”

From what he’d seen, the same pattern had emerged, with tills under and over by some amount at closing time, but made up for the next day. The receipts roughly matched the takings by week’s end, though, so at least they weren’t dealing with sticky fingers...he hoped.

It wasn’t as if Stephanie needed the money—her family was filthy stinking rich. If she was stealing, it had to be for the thrill of it. Somehow, that didn’t strike him as Steph’s style, but what did he know?

“How did your meetings with the contractors go?” Georgette asked, changing the subject.

“Good. I’ve decided to go with Ollie White. He gave the best rate, and he seems like an upstanding guy.”

“Ollie’s good,” Georgette agreed. “But I do wish you’d considered hiring Jimmy Tremont.”

“Gran, he’s not a licensed contractor.” She’d brought him up when Aaron had started talking renos. The guy had lost his job at a processing plant last month. “I’m not paying some random guy for a big job like this.”

Georgette moved the food around her plate demurely. “He’s hit hard times, Aaron. We try to help each other out around here.”

“He’s not even insured. And I’d end up paying him under the table.”

“But you’d keep food on his family’s table,” she said, studiously eating her cut-up spaghetti.

Aaron sighed. Gran was a softie, taking in strays and playing patron saint to the hungry and down-on-their-luck. Not that he didn’t appreciate her generous spirit—he’d been one of those poor lost souls once. “I’ll see if there are any small jobs he can handle,” he said. He’d already planned to do the painting himself: Jimmy could help him with that and a few other finishing touches.

“By the way, Stephanie called me. She was concerned about how the renovations would affect business. She’s worried about the mess it would make.”

“I’ve already consulted Ollie about this. He even talked to Ben, the health inspector in town. We can keep the bakery open. Everything’s going to be isolated in the dining room. As long as we seal it off and keep a ventilation fan pointed outside, we should be fine. Knocking down the dividing wall and tearing up the flooring will take less than a day. It’s the electrical and drywall and finishing touches that take time.”

“It takes weeks for plaster dust to settle, Aaron. Don’t get me wrong. I’m excited for this project of yours, and I wouldn’t think of stopping you. But...I’m hoping you’ll reassure Stephanie.”

Aaron stuffed a forkful of noodles in his mouth and chewed to hide the tick in his cheek. “She’s got nothing to worry about.”

“She’s a sensitive girl. She doesn’t handle change easily.”

Well, that’s too bad. But he knew it was unfair to be so coldhearted. Gran liked her and had hired her, and that should be enough for him to at least give her a chance.

Privately, he admitted he’d been rude to her. Not because of what she’d done to him in high school, and not because he suspected she was costing his grandmother hundreds if not thousands of dollars. It was because her very presence upset his equilibrium. Made him lose focus. As far as he could tell, she was still the same girl she’d been in high school: flaky, flighty and so self-centered that she was oblivious to what was going on around her.

And he was still attracted to her. It made no sense. At all.