Brad didn’t value her enough. He knew Brad didn’t deserve her. But how could he tell her that? How could he tell her the truth without ending up with her despising him more than she now did Brad? If she really did.
Besides, what could he offer her in place of her romance with Brad? He wasn’t even sure he would ever be ready for any sort of full-time, long-term relationship. Every now and then he thought he’d conquered his background and the wariness he felt. But then he would see examples among his friends that just brought it back again. Could you trust another human in the long run? Was it worth the effort, just to be betrayed in the end?
And so—the Scotch. The alcohol was supposed to give him the courage to do what had to be done. But it didn’t work that way. It made him sick instead, and he babbled incoherently once he had Jill’s attention. She never understood what he was trying to say.
He couldn’t even tell her now. She’d asked him a direct question. What was he so upset about that night? And still, he couldn’t tell her the truth.
Because I knew you were marrying the wrong man. You should have been marrying me.
Reaching out, he caught her hand and looked deep into her eyes.
“Jill, tell me what you want. What you need in your life to be happy.”
She stared back at him, and he waited, heart beating a fast tattoo on his soul.
“Connor,” she began, “I... I don’t know how to explain it exactly, but I...”
But then she shook her head and the timer went off and they both rose to check the cakes. Whatever she’d been about to say was lost in a cloud of the aroma of delicious confections.
* * *
The last full-size cakes came out and were set to cool and they began to fill the large mini Bundt cake pans. Twelve little cakes per pan. And each had to be filled to exactly the same level.
“They’ll take about fifteen to twenty minutes,” she told him nervously. “Then the ovens have to be back up to temperature before we put the next batch in. If we time it right, we might just make it. But it’s going to be close.”
One hundred and ten little cakes, she thought with a tiny surge of hysteria. Oh, my!
Connor left to deliver some of the full-size cakes. Jill checked on the babies. They were still sleeping in their travel cribs. She was thankful for that. Back to the kitchen, she began to prepare the rectangular boxes with the small dividers she was going to put the mini cakes in once they were ready to go. Then Connor was back and they pulled a batch out.
“These are perfect,” she said with a sigh of relief. “You get the next batch ready. I’ll make the Limoncello glaze.”
They both had their eyes on the clock. Time seemed to go so quickly. Minutes seemed to evaporate into thin air. Jill was moving as fast as she could.
And then the phone started ringing. People who hadn’t had their deliveries yet were wondering why.
“We’re working as fast as we can,” she told them. “Please, every minute I spend on the phone means your cake will get there that much later.”
It was starting to feel hopeless. A batch overflowed its pan and they had to pull it out, clean up the mess and start again. She mixed up three batches of glaze and accidentally knocked them over onto the floor. That had to be done again.
And the clock was ticking.
She felt as though the beating of her heart was a clock, racing her, mocking her, letting her know she wasn’t going to make it. Biting her lip, she forced back that feeling and dug in even harder.
“Last batch going in,” Connor called.
She hurried over to see if it was okay. It was fine. Connor was turning out to be a godsend.
It was almost time. The phone rang. It was the Garden Club wondering where their cake was.
“Their party isn’t until seven tonight,” she said in full annoyance mode. “Can’t they wait?”
“I’ll run it over,” Connor offered.
“You will not,” she told him. “The engagement party is next. We have to deliver to them by five or we will have failed.”
The twins woke up and were cranky. Connor tried to entertain them but there was very little hope. They wanted their mother.
Jill had to leave Connor alone with the cakes while she cuddled her boys and coaxed them into a better mood. She knew they needed her and she loved them to pieces, but all the while she felt time passing, ticking, making her crazy. She had to get back to the cakes.
Connor had his own problems. His phone was vibrating every fifteen minutes. Every call was from Brad. He knew that without even checking. He had no intention of answering the phone, but every time it began to move, he had that sinking feeling again.
Brad. Why couldn’t he just disappear?
Instead he was texting. Connor didn’t read the texts. There was no point to it. He knew what they said.
Brad wanted answers. He wanted to know what was going on. He wanted to get the latest scoop on Jill. All things Connor had no intention of giving him. But knowing Brad, that wasn’t going to satisfy him. He was going to intrude, one way or another. And he wouldn’t wait long to make his influence felt. Connor looked at his phone. If only there was some way to cut the link to Brad and his expectations.
IT WAS TIME. They had to move. But the twins wouldn’t stop clinging to Jill.
Connor had an idea. He brought in a huge plastic tub he found in the garage, placing it in an empty corner of the kitchen, far from the oven and the electric appliances. Using a large pitcher, he put a few inches of barely warm water in the bottom.
“Hey kids,” he called to them. “Want to go swimming?”
He didn’t have to offer twice. They were excited, getting into their swimsuits and finding swim toys. Jill could get back to packing up her cakes and Connor could supervise the play area while he worked on glazing at the same time.
The long, rectangular boxes were filled with cakes for the Jamison engagement party. It was time to go. Connor packed them into Jill’s van and took off. Jill sat down beside the tub of water to watch her boys pretend to swim and she felt tears well up in her eyes. They had made it. Now—as long as they didn’t poison everyone at the engagement party, things would calm down. There were still a few cakes to deliver, but nothing was the hectic job the engagement party had been. She’d come through. And she couldn’t have done it without Connor.
She wrapped her arms around her knees and hugged tightly. “Thank you, Connor,” she whispered to the kitchen air. “You saved my life. I think I love you.”
And she did. Didn’t she? She always had. Not the way she loved Brad. But Brad was always such a problem and Connor never was.
She remembered when Brad had been the coolest guy around. The guy everyone looked up to, the hunk every girl wanted to be with. He drove the coolest convertible, had the best parties, knew all the right people. At least, that was the way it seemed back then. And he had chosen her. It was amazing how much you could grow up in just a few years and learn to see beyond the facade.
“Cool” didn’t mean much when you had babies to feed in the middle of the night. And it only got in the way when it was time to separate your real friends from the posers. Back then, she’d been a pretty rotten judge of character. She’d improved. She had a better idea of what real worth was.
A half hour later, Connor was back. She rose to meet him, ready to ask him how it went, but he didn’t give her time to do that. Instead he came right for her, picked her up and swung her around in a small celebratory dance.
“You