“Wow, and I thought I got up early,” Maxi said as she wandered into the kitchen sporting faded jeans and a coral T-shirt. “Even Oliver’s still sacked out. He’s asleep in the tent with “mi niños. I recognized his little snuffling sounds.”
Kate sighed. “I’ve been up since three. Couldn’t sleep. But on the bright side, I just made a fresh pot of your special coffee. Let me know if I got it right. And if you’re up for it, you can taste-test the rolls for Sunny’s morning class. My only problem is how to actually get them there.”
“Taste-testing? That’s the job I was born for. I might even put it on my business cards.”
Kate grabbed a plate from the cupboard and sliced off a roll from a pan cooling on the counter. She dropped a dollop of butter onto the plate and handed the plate and knife carefully to Maxi.
Her friend pinched off a corner and popped it into her mouth. Maxi’s face bloomed into a smile. “OK, these are really good.” She cut the roll in half, spread one piece with a little butter, and finished it.
“If you made nothing but these, Sam would be back in business.”
Kate grinned. “You’re just hungry. But at least I didn’t burn them, and the texture is exactly what I was going for.”
“If that means they’re light and fluffy and taste like more, you nailed it. Sunny’s gonna be banging down our door to get her hands on these. Hey, I just realized something. Sunny’s six a.m. classes? They don’t get out until almost seven thirty.”
“Oh jeez, that’s got to be one killer class.”
“Pretty much,” Maxi said, finishing off the other half of the roll. “The only way to survive is to kinda sleep through it. But what I was thinking is, since it’s that late, Peter might be willing to make the drop for us. You know, if we give him a couple to try first. As incentive.”
“That’s fair. As long as he doesn’t mind. I made plenty. A few dozen for the class and another two dozen just to test the recipe.”
“Excelente. That means I can have another one. Oooh, this coffee is good. You might just have a couple of Cubans in your family tree.”
“Nah, old sous chef’s trick. Watch someone a couple of times and ape what they do. ‘Fake it till you make it’ is what one of my instructors called it. I just hope that works with sourdough.”
Maxi sniffed the air. “Are you baking cookies again?”
“Not again. Still. I thought I’d make some for the crews coming to work on the bakery today. And do a few more of the gift boxes for the people dropping off food.”
“Potential customers all,” Maxi said happily. “And the best part is we don’t have to chase them down, because they’re coming to us.”
“The batch you’re smelling is pecan brownie cookies. I use cocoa powder in the dough. Very rich.”
“Ay, hopefully that will be us after this is over. Very rich. And we can pay people to do our work, while we sleep for a week. Oh, that reminds me. The guy from the health department called yesterday. He said either Thursday or Friday. But definitely by Friday.”
“That’s cutting it close,” Kate said, pausing after she poured flour into the bright blue mixing bowl. “If he comes Thursday, I can bake all day Friday and we can open Saturday. If he comes Friday, we can still open Saturday, but we won’t have anything to sell.”
“So maybe we sell stuff as we bake it. Or give it away as we bake it. Everything fresh and warm. As a way of saying ‘thank you’ to the whole town.”
“Giving away the first batches? That’s brilliant. It’s going to cost Sam a little in supplies, on top of the cost of being closed for a week. But hopefully we can make it up with the additional sales from desserts and cookies.”
“We could do the same thing with some of the restaurant clients, too. Like Oy and Begorra. And even In Vino Veritas. Bread and wine is classic. And wine and cookies? Not so bad, either.”
“Which reminds me, we never got over to talk to Harp about Stewart Lord,” Kate said, determinedly beating butter and sugar together in a second bowl.
“So we tackle him today,” Maxi said. “He’s just around the corner. It shouldn’t take that long.”
“That works. I really want to see what you think of this next batch. I’m mixing up something special. One of my grandmother’s recipes. Anise and almond cookies. She always made them at Christmas. I thought it might bring us a little good luck.”
“Oh, that sounds good. And we could use a little holiday magic.”
A few minutes later, the wet ingredients sufficiently tamed, Kate reached for the extract. Reflexively, she took the cap off the bottle and sniffed it.
And it all came flooding back. The break-in. The footsteps. The fear. Kate’s heart pounded.
She set down the anise extract and leaned heavily on the counter.
“Kate! What’s wrong?” Maxi called across the kitchen.
Kate shook her head. “It’s OK. I’m fine.”
“You’re working too hard,” Maxi said. “Come and sit for a while. Have a little something to eat.”
Kate shook her head. “No, it’s not that. Hang on a minute.” Purposefully, she reached for the extract again. Taking a deep breath and willing herself calm, she brought the small bottle to her nose and inhaled the pungent fragrance.
It was like a front-row seat to the night of the break-in. The memories were vivid. Technicolor. The menacing footsteps across the tile floor. The fear as she tore down the stairs, toward the front door. To safety. To Oliver. The relief that flooded her body as she sat on the floor of the shop, with her arms wrapped around the half-grown puppy. The smell of the beach on his coat. How warm he felt. Solid.
Along with the stench of cigarettes, there had been two other scents lingering in the air after the intruder’s hasty retreat. And now she knew. One of them—the familiar smell—had been anise.