King
It’s not every day you’re late to work because a llama got himself stuck in a pool. Except, this isn’t the first time this has happened, so that whole ‘every day’ thing is becoming more and more likely. And while the llama is perfectly fine, if a little waterlogged, I’m at the end of my rope as I storm into the bakery smelling of wet camelid. Not a good smell, if you’re curious.
“King!” Meg, the only other morning employee at the bakery, practically screams my name when I stomp into the kitchen. She’s too easily startled, especially when she refuses to stop listening to music at full blast whenever she’s in the back, and she presses a flour-covered hand to her chest as she heaves in lungfuls of air. “I tried calling you.”
I curse under my breath when I realize I left my phone at home, thanks to Prince Harry and his severe lack of self-preservation. I swear, that llama is going to do me in one of these days if he doesn’t do himself in first. “Sorry,” I mumble and peel my wet shirt off. I could have changed before leaving the house, but I’m already several weeks behind on laundry as it is, and I’m not sure I would have found a clean shirt.
I had planned to do a load last night after I got home from the surf shop, but I made the mistake of sitting down to eat my microwave dinner. I woke this morning with a half-eaten meal on my lap and a llama making ungodly noises as he struggled to keep his head above water. Honestly, I have no idea how long he was in the pool before I jumped in to save him.
Despite his impressive ability to escape his pen, Prince Harry is not a smart animal. If he had moved to the other end of the pool, his neck would have been plenty long enough to allow easy breathing. But no, my idiot llama chose the six-foot end, which is just a few inches taller than his nose.
“You okay?” Meg asks, her voice thin.
I glance over at her, wet shirt in hand, and immediately regret my thoughtless decision to remove my shirt. She’s doing her best to keep her eyes on mine, but her gaze keeps slipping downward. Meg was honestly a godsend when she applied for the open baker position. She just graduated college and is back home in Willow Cove for the summer until she starts an internship in the fall, and she has enough rudimentary baking skills to follow a basic recipe, plus availability in the mornings. I’ve got two teenagers who handle the afternoons while I’m over at the surf shop, but it’s the morning baking where I’ve needed the most help.
The problem, though, is Meg hasn’t been shy about making her interest known. I’ve got six years on her, so we never ran in the same circles, but she seems to have decided that now that she’s firmly an adult, we’re a perfect pairing. The age difference alone is enough to keep me wary, but I haven’t done much dating during the last decade. I’m not about to change that now just because a twenty-two-year-old keeps giving me bedroom eyes.
I think if Meg knew my breakfast this morning was the rest of last night’s dinner, she wouldn’t be so keen on pushing our relationship to be more than just boss and employee.
“How are the sticky buns coming?” I ask, hoping to subtly keep her attention on the pastries and off my bare chest.
Meg lets out a little sigh and glances at the oven behind her. “Almost done. Are you okay to handle the cookies? I need to get this bread finished.”
“Yes,” I say, though we both know I’m being overconfident. I still have no idea why my uncle left me his bakery, considering I rarely spent any time here growing up, but I suppose he had no other options. Besides, he’d only been fifty-five. No one expected him to go so soon. Not even him.
Glancing at my watch and wincing when I realize just how late I am, I grab Uncle Bill’s recipe book and flip to the double fudge cookie recipe, which will be the flavor of the day. Uncle Bill used to make all kinds of cookies every day, often experimenting with something new, but I’m lucky if I get through two or three flavors in a morning before I have to head to the other side of the boardwalk and open the surf shop where’ll I spend the rest of the day until the sun goes down—and then start it all over again the next day.
I’m drowning, just like Prince Harry the llama, only I don’t have someone to jump in and save me.
Meg clears her throat and nods toward my shirtless body. “At least put on an apron?” she suggests, though she seems reluctant about saying anything.
I’m not about to spend several hours in this kitchen in nothing but an apron, especially with my jeans hanging low on my hips because they’re still soaking wet. Tossing my wet shirt into the corner of the kitchen that serves as an office, I make my way to the front of the bakery to see if there are any extra-large shirts left amongst the Kingston’s Bakery merchandise. I was supposed to put in an order for more two weeks ago, but…
It’s just one thing on an enormous list of things I need to do before summer officially hits next week and, quite frankly, it’s my lowest priority.
The lobby is almost empty outside of a couple of locals who have already claimed their usual spots, even though we don’t open for another hour. As usual, Mrs. Vanderman is reading the local newspaper on her phone with a font so large that only one or two words fit on a line. Gary and Carl, two old fishermen of indeterminate age, have set up their daily game of Battleship over by the window. It looks like Carl put on a fresh pot of coffee, and I smile as I silently make my way to the far corner by the registers, where our limited supply of t-shirts and mugs sits in its sad display.
The logo design—the words “Kingston’s Bakery” overlaid on a crudely drawn muffin—hasn’t changed in thirty years and is, quite frankly, pathetic. But it’s Uncle Bill’s. He built this place from the ground up and turned it into a Willow Cove favorite. When the tourists come flooding in for the summer every year, they always become regular customers while they’re here, and I’m dreading how some people will react when they learn Bill died two months ago. He was the heart and soul of this place, a bright spot in everyone’s life no matter how short a time he was a part of it.
Kingston’s isn’t the same without him. And not just because I’m a terrible baker. This place doesn’t have the life it used to, and I’m not sure it ever will. Without Uncle Bill’s optimism and broad smiles, the bakery is slowly dying right alongside my energy levels. And maybe my will to live.
The bell over the door jingles, and I quicken my search for a shirt that will fit me. The only one big enough is a bright pink tee with the logo over the left breast and a giant, low quality iron-on of a sticky bun on the back. It’s a 3XL, and the thought of putting it on feels like some weird metaphor for me never being able to fill the space my uncle left. I’m pretty sure Uncle Bill made this shirt himself fifteen years ago and it’s been sitting on the back of the shelf ever since. But it will fit and doesn’t smell like wet llama, so I’ll call this a win.
Even if it makes me feel all the more incompetent.
“Oh my gosh, I wish you could smell this place, Cece!” A feminine voice fills the quiet stillness of the bakery, pulling my attention behind me before I can pull the hideous shirt on. A tourist is talking to her phone, holding it in front of her face, and her voice is way too loud for such an early hour. “It’s smaller than I thought, but can you imagine how cute it would look if these booths were replaced by extra tall tables?” She gestures to the booths behind her, where Gary and Carl are sitting.
Her phone is blocking my view of her face, but she looks and sounds like someone from up north, probably one of the bigger cities like D.C. or New York. I already don’t like her, especially because she ignored the sign on the door that clearly says we’re closed.
This is what I get for not locking the door.
“Oo, imagine a long countertop running along that wall over there,” she says, turning her back to me as she flips her camera and pans across the far wall. “And white walls with lemon accents!”
I take in the deep green color of the walls, my frown growing deeper. Who in the world does this woman think she is? Gary and Carl have stopped their game, both with matching expressions of confusion as they watch the woman continue her assessment of my bakery.
“And a giant screen over the—” She squeaks when her phone points at me in the corner, and then she drops her arms and turns a bright red, as if she hadn’t realized anyone else was in the room.
Something settles heavy in my gut. Now that I’ve got a good look at her, she looks far more familiar than I’d like. There’s no way…
“Oh,” she says, eyes quickly taking me in before dropping to her feet. “I guess someone missed the ‘no shirt, no shoes, no service’ sign on his way in.”
I tug the t-shirt over my head, not because she said something but because I feel far too exposed. If she’s who I think she is, I’m going to need thick layers of armor between me and her. A thin piece of cotton isn’t going to provide much protection, but it’s something. “Someone missed the ‘closed’ sign,” I say back. My words come out rough. Strained.
The woman glances behind her, first at the sign on the door and then to the three old people sitting in their spots. “A few someones,” she says slowly. Then her eyes meet mine again, and I’m hit with a sharp sense of déjà vu. They’re a bright shade of green that I’ve only seen on one person before. Her curly hair is shorter and her face is thinner, but everything else about her is familiar.
I’m tempted to look behind me, where several pictures are taped to the wall above the merchandise display. Though I force myself to keep my gaze on the woman in the center of the room, I know exactly which photo is calling to me. It’s the second one from the left, third row down, and it’s a picture of Uncle Bill and a fourteen-year old girl in the bakery kitchen, both of them laughing as they decorate cupcakes.
My fingers curl into fists as the woman starts studying me the way I’m studying her. I didn’t think she would ever come back.
“I was hoping to talk to Mr. Kingston,” she says, taking a small step forward.
My scowl stops her from taking another. “That’s impossible.”
“Please? He’ll want to see me.”
I’m sure he would, if he were still alive. But the fact that she’s here, now, and has no idea that Uncle Bill is gone…well, it doesn’t bode well for me. She hasn’t recognized me yet, but she will.
I fold my arms. “We’re closed,” I say sharply. Gary and Carl give each other pointed glances, and Mrs. Vanderman looks like she badly wants to interrupt this exchange, but the three of them keep silent. “You can come back later if you really want, but it’s not going to get you a meeting with Bill Kingston.”
The woman pouts and tucks a dark curl behind her ear, making my stomach twist into a knot. My doubts that I know exactly who she is are dwindling with every expression and gesture she makes. As if my day wasn’t bad enough already… “It really won’t take a long time,” she says and cranes her neck, trying to see into the kitchen through the swinging door separating the lobby from the back. “I promise Bill will want—”
“Come back later.”
“But I—”
“Georgie.” Her name tumbles off my tongue almost painfully, leaving behind the taste of acid.
The color drains from her face as her eyes take me in once more. I don’t think I look that different, but it still takes a few seconds before recognition sets in. “Royal,” she whispers, and I can’t help but wince at her use of my first name. She’s the only person who has ever really called me by my actual name.
“King,” I correct and point to the door. “Later. I’ll find you.”
I don’t move until she’s gone, the bell signaling her departure, but even then my limbs feel like lead. Georgie Carpenter is in Willow Cove. The last time I saw her, she was looking out a plane window and disappearing into the sunset, and I was trying to figure out how I could have seen her as anything but a coward and a quitter who would so easily tear my heart to shreds without a single word.
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