ADAM STROLLED INTO the bank on Tuesday morning with a coffee in one hand and his brown bag lunch in the other. He’d had a meeting with Dave at the district office in Traverse City that morning, so he arrived later than his usual time. His boss was pleased with the preliminary results for the first week with the community fund, though Adam had left Dave’s office with a reminder that he still had a deadline to meet.
Adam waved to his tellers as he entered, then paused when he saw Megs sitting in the lobby. Had she made an appointment with him that he’d forgotten? He doubted it. He’d certainly remember her.
He walked up to her and waited for her to look up at him. “Did we have a scheduled meeting this morning?”
She blinked several times, then shook her head slowly. Today she wore a yellow sweater that brought out the golden tones of her hair and eyes. He swallowed, then lifted his bagged lunch. “Let me get this in the fridge, then we can talk. My office door is open if you’d like to meet me there.”
She nodded and turned to retrieve her purse and coat. Adam detoured by the teller stand where Eva worked on night deposits. “How long has Ms. Sweet been waiting for me?”
“She was here when we opened the doors.” Eva looked over at her. “I explained you had a morning meeting, but she insisted on waiting for you. We offered her something to drink while she waited.”
“Thanks.” He glanced behind him and saw that she’d set herself up in his office. He hoped that this meant she had completed what he needed for her loan application. “Any other messages?”
“Town council meeting is tomorrow night. You ready?”
Adam gave her a smile. He’d spent most of the previous evening polishing a second presentation of the community fund and emphasizing Foster’s desire to establish a relationship between the bank and town. “Can you hold my calls while I’m with Ms. Sweet?”
“Yes, boss.” Eva saluted him then smirked. “Important client?”
“They all are.” He left her and went to the break room to hang his coat and put his lunch away. He walked down to the restroom to check his appearance in the mirror. Pushed back a strand of hair that had fallen out of its gelled position. Loosened his tie a little so that he wouldn’t look so stiff. Took a deep breath. Leaned on the sink and stared at his reflection. I can do this. I can go in there and help Megan Sweet. Maybe make it up to her for all the horrible things I did to her in the past.
He rubbed his left shoulder, remembering Kenny and the way she’d stood up for her friend against Adam. The fire in her eyes when she’d warned him to back off. He’d admired her for doing that, the only one who had ever stood up to his bullying. And he’d rewarded her days later by kissing her hard, hoping to bruise her soft lips. She’d slapped him after, but the damage had been done. He had so many regrets.
He left the restroom and strode down the hall to his office. Let’s get this over with.
She sat in the same chair she had the week before, her legs crossed and hands folded and resting on top of the folder he’d given her. He took a seat behind his desk. “I would have been here this morning if I’d known you were coming in.”
“I should have called first.” She lifted the folder from her lap and handed it to him across the desk. “All the information you requested is in there.”
He nodded and accepted the folder, flipping it open and reviewing each page. He could sense her fidgeting while he examined the figures she’d provided as well as the mission statement for her business. He smiled at her words: “To provide baked goods that fed not only the body, but the soul.” A lofty goal.
He put the pages back down and looked over at her. “Everything’s good. Thank you for getting this to me in a timely manner.”
Ugh. His words sounded stuffy but polite. As if he was keeping himself at a distance from her. But then she’d set up the groundwork for that herself.
She nodded and rose to her feet. “Is there anything else you need from me?”
Forgiveness.
He only wished for that. Had worked so hard to get it from his other victims by starting with an apology and seeing if he could make up for his past. To redeem his once worthless life into one that would make his parents proud again. Not that it seemed as though anything he did would ever cause that to happen. “Yes, I’ll need to interview you regarding some things that go beyond what’s in the application.” He glanced at his watch. “Do you have the time to do that now?”
She sat back down. “What kind of interview?”
He put his hand on the folder. “What’s in here is part of the picture I need to paint to my loan officer to approve your request. But I’ve found that sometimes there are things that the application doesn’t cover. Especially in your case when the request is for money to rebuild.”
“Fine. What do you want to know?”
He opened a desk drawer and withdrew a yellow pad of paper and pen. “Is it all right with you if I take notes during our conversation?” When she nodded, he wrote her name at the top of the page and underlined it several times. “How much of a loan were you looking for?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. How much are you offering me?”
“You don’t have a ballpark figure in mind?”
She reached up and rubbed the space between her eyebrows. “The insurance company is offering a little over half of what I need to rebuild what I had before. So I’m estimating about another twenty-five thousand dollars would work.” She looked up at him. “But I’ll take more if you’re offering it.”
He wrote the figure down. “The proceeds of the loan would cover what expenses?”
“Materials for the reconstruction as well as what my contractor will charge me for his labor.” She pointed to the folder. “I wrote that in my application inside.”
“We’re painting a picture, remember?” He made some further notes. “Close your eyes.” When she frowned at him, he shrugged. “Humor me. Please.” She closed her eyes. “Picture the perfect bakery that you want to build. See it? The display cases. The tables and chairs. In the kitchen, picture the ovens and industrial mixers. Now open your eyes. What did you see?”
“Two sets of double ovens. My old marble worktable. Stainless-steel triple sink. And a dishwasher that actually works.” She bit her lip and thought for a moment. “Tall tables with stools in the dining area. Glass display cases with a tall refrigerated case for take-home-and-bake items.”
He nodded and wrote down the words as she spoke them. “Sounds like a nice place.”
“It is. And it’s completely different from what I used to have.” She shook her head and stood. Grabbed her coat and purse. “I don’t think I can do this right now.”
Adam frowned at the pad of paper. “But things were going so well. What’s wrong?”
“What I just saw in my head wasn’t what I expected. I’m sorry. Things have changed.” She put her coat on and zipped it up the front. “I’ll make an appointment for tomorrow.”
She started to leave but he walked over and reached out to grab her coat sleeve. She turned and looked down at his hand, then glared at him. “I said no touching.”
He removed his hand and held it up. “Please don’t leave. This process is almost done, and I can get your application over to my loan officer within the hour. Don’t walk out on your future, Megan.”
“That’s the problem. I didn’t plan on the future I just saw.” Her shoulders slumped slightly then she put her purse down in the far seat and removed her coat. “Fine. But I’m not committed to what I just told you, right?”
“Why wouldn’t you want it to be?” He took his seat once more as she did the same. “So it wasn’t what you expected. Is that so wrong?”
She took several deep breaths. “Sam’s been working on floor plans similar to what the Sweetheart was before. He thought that was what I wanted.”
“But you don’t?”
She frowned. “That perfect bakery in my head? It’s different than the original. I didn’t realize it until just now.”
“Then, I’d say we did some good work, wouldn’t you?” He smiled over at her and almost cheered when she returned it for a brief moment. “When are you looking to receive the proceeds from the loan?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Last week?” She chuckled. “I’ll be getting the insurance check within the week to get the work started, but I’m looking at a construction schedule over the next six to eight weeks.”
He made that note, then looked up at her. “That’s all I need for now. I can call you if something else comes up? Once I get this over to my loan consultant, I should hear something within the next forty-eight hours.” She nodded but didn’t move to leave. They sat in silence for a long moment until he sighed. “Today was nice. I’m sorry for being such a jerk to you back in high school.”
“Rule number one, we don’t talk about the past.”
“I know the rules, but we need to talk about the elephant in the room if we’re going to work together.” He leaned across the desk. “About that day with Kenny...”
“I can’t talk about him.” She got to her feet and put her coat on. “You agreed to the rules from the beginning, yet you broke two of them today.”
“You live by a lot of rules, don’t you?”
She flipped her hair out from beneath her coat. “I’m a baker who follows the directions on a recipe to get a superior product. What are directions if not rules?” She retrieved her purse and turned back to look at him. “If the recipe for us working together means following those rules to get the best result, then that’s what we have to do.”
She made sense, as much as he hated to admit it. “Okay. No touching. No talking about the past.” Her eyebrows rose until he added, “Nothing done for pity or to redeem our past. Keep it professional.” He paused. “Was that it?”
“You may think I need you, but I don’t.”
He watched her walk out of the bank with her head held high, a reminder of the girl she’d been. He looked down at the application and his notes. He might have agreed to her rules, but there was one he had to break. No matter what, he was going to get this loan for her to make up for what he’d done to her.
* * *
MEGS CLEARED OFF the dining room table so that Sam could go over his construction plans for the new Sweetheart. Kelly smiled and put her arm around his shoulders. “I can’t wait to see what you came up with. Aren’t you excited, Megs?”
After her meeting with Adam and her vision of the perfect bakery, she wasn’t sure. “None of this is etched in stone, right? We can change things as we need to?”
“You’re the boss. It’s whatever you want it to be, Megs.” He set up the laptop so that the sisters could get the best view. “Within the constraints of the physical structure and the budget, of course.”
Kelly rolled her eyes. “And don’t be talking about upgrading the hot-water heater or reinforcing the foundation.” She turned to Megs. “He gets his mind set on mundane details sometimes.”
“If we do an inspection and discover it needs to be done...”
“You love spending money on details that the customer isn’t going to see or care about.”
“They’re going to care if they fall through the floor or if Megs needs hot water and can’t get any out of the faucet.”
Megs held up her hands in a timeout pattern. “Are we talking about the bakery or are you rehashing an old argument?”
“Fair enough.” Kelly sat on a chair next to her sister. “But I’m serious. Watch out for him.”
She squelched a grin and took a deep breath. “Go for it, Sam. We’re ready to see what you came up with.”
Sam pressed a few keys on the computer and the old bakery facade came on screen. Megs winced. She was afraid that Sam might be right about needing to reinforce the structure that was already there. He pressed another key, and it faded to a rendering of what the new bakery could look like. The front window with the original script Sweetheart surrounded by red hearts. But the front door was now wider with two French doors. “Are those practical for my business?”
Sam shrugged. “It was just an idea I’ve been floating around. And so is this.” He pressed more keys, and the old dining room flashed on screen then faded to a replica of the new. It had the same tables and chairs, but the L-shaped display cases had been replaced by two straight line cases with the register in between. Gone was the swinging door into the back kitchen. Instead, it was left open with a clear view from the front of the bakery to the double ovens.
Megs stood and leaned into the computer to get a better view. She glanced up at Sam. “An open concept?”
“I thought people might like to watch you while you work. You’re an artist in the kitchen.” He pressed a few more keys. “But I also did a plan with the old swinging doors.”
Kelly nodded. “I like that one better.”
“Of course you do. It looks like it used to be.” Megs stood and crossed her arms over her chest. “I’d consider a more open look, but would I feel as though I was on display along with the pastries? I don’t know.”
“Like I said, these are just ideas to give us a starting point.”
He pressed more keys and brought up a picture of the old kitchen, which faded to the new, improved rendering. She noted the double ovens and wished she could have seen a double set of them. Four ovens would mean she could bake more products at the same time, cutting down how long she spent in the kitchen. She’d have to see if there was room in the budget for that.
“And this is the upstairs loft for you.”
He’d created a studio apartment above the bakery for her. She smiled at his thoughtfulness. If he was planning on marrying Kelly, then he would want her to be moved out before he could move in. She could see where his mind was. “I like the loft.”
She glanced over at Kelly who watched Sam with a soft expression on her face. “You used my idea.”
He reached out and brushed aside the bangs from her face. “It was a good one.”
Megs cleared her throat. “How much would this cost me?”
Sam gave her several sheets with figures. “The top page there is if we go cheap. Spend more on what the customer sees.” He glanced at Kelly. “But the second shows if we spend more to upgrade the kitchen.”
“What would it cost to get two sets of double ovens? Would that fit in my budget?” She flipped through the pages and paled at the figures listed. “And how much do you need to hire workers to get this done before Easter?”
“Besides Kelly, maybe two more guys, and I can get this done before then.” He watched her as she read the proposal over. “And if you want to get a proposal from another builder, I’ll understand.”
“Why would I do that? I know you and your work.” She handed him back the pages. “Of course, all of this depends on how my loan app goes.”
Kelly touched her arm. “Do you think it went well?”
It had, for the most part. Adam had seemed different. Mature. She could even admit that he seemed friendly and eager to work with her. Until he’d brought up high school. If they could keep it impersonal yet professional, it would be fine. But if he insisted on recalling things that were better left alone, she wasn’t sure. She wanted to forget the horrible past rather than reliving it by seeing him. And then, when he’d touched her... It had felt like a lightning bolt up her arm into her chest. But in a good way. “I guess. I’ll hear something by Thursday.”
“I don’t know how you’ll be able to sleep until then.”
Megs wasn’t sure, either. If she couldn’t get the loan, then rebuilding the existing place was out. She’d have to relocate, and that was definitely not in her plans. “We’ll hope for the best but prepare for the worst.”
“You’re so calm. I envy that.” Kelly reached out and rubbed her shoulder. “What’s your reaction to Sam’s designs?”
“They’ve definitely given me something to consider.” She glanced at her sister. “I don’t know if I want things to be exactly as they were. Would you be okay with that?”
Kelly shrugged, but didn’t look Megs in the eye. “Why wouldn’t I be? It’s your bakery, not mine.” She pointed at the renovated dining room they were standing in. “I didn’t consult with you on the changes we made here, to the house, so I wouldn’t expect you to do the same on this.”
“But I do want to consider it, your opinion, I mean.” She stared at the laptop that was still scrolling through Sam’s ideas like a slideshow. “I’m not sure about how open I want it to be. And I’d hoped to have room for events like Suzy’s baby shower we did last fall.” She shrugged. “I guess there’s still time for me to do some research.”
“Check out Pinterest. Tons of design ideas there that might help you.”
“Thanks.” Megs looked over at Sam, who returned to the dining room with a cup of coffee. “And thank you, too. This was more than I expected.”
Kelly put her arms around Sam’s middle and looked up at him, love shining in her eyes. “He’s amazing, isn’t he?”
Megs swallowed and tried to squelch the finger of jealousy that crawled up from her belly. What would it be like to have a good man in her life? To gaze adoringly at someone who was on her side and made her feel confident, as if anything were possible?
Adam’s face flashed in her mind for a moment. But she wised up and shook it off.
* * *
THE CHECK FROM the insurance company arrived in the mail, so Megs drove into town to get that deposited into her account as soon as she could. That meant work could start on the new bakery. She walked through the lobby and found that she was the only customer there. She moved to Eva’s station and handed her the check and deposit slip she’d filled out at home. “Payday came a little early this week.”
Eva accepted them and ran them through her machine. She leaned in and dropped the volume of her voice. “Has Adam called you about your loan yet?”
Megs shook her head. “No, has he heard something?”
“He’s been on the phone most of the day, so I’d hoped he had good news about your application.”
She turned and glanced behind her toward the wall of glass that separated Adam’s office from the lobby. Sure enough, he was on the phone, and by the looks of things, the conversation was not going well. She’d hate to be on the other end of that call if his thunderous expression was any indication. “I’m sure I’ll hear about it soon enough.” She turned back and accepted her receipt from Eva. “I’m meeting Sam at the bakery now to see what we can salvage from the damage.”
Eva patted her hand. “Good luck with that, sweetie. We’re all pulling for you.”
Megs gave her a nod, then turned to leave. She met Adam’s gaze through the window, and he waved her over. Maybe he did have some good news. She walked to his office, and he stretched the phone cord to get up and open the door for her. He indicated a chair, so she took a seat and waited, unzipping her coat in case it was going to take a while for him to finish his conversation.
Adam bit out his words. “I’ll get back to you on this, but understand that I am not happy. Nor will my client be when she hears this.”
Dread hit her in the belly, and she squeezed her hands together. Was he talking about her? She waited for him to hang up the phone, knowing his words before he said them. “That was the loan consultant. Again. She has some concerns about your application.”
Megs closed her eyes and willed her lunch to stay down. “Concerns?”
“The bakery’s ownership is transferring over from your grandmother to you, but the will giving you the business is still in probate?”
He raised his eyes to hers, but she knew that he already knew the answer to that. She gave a short nod. “Zac believes everything should be wrapped up within the next few weeks. Maybe a month, since everything was spelled out clearly and there’s been no objections. Is that a problem?”
“Not for me.” He scowled at the phone as if it was to blame. “The consultant seems to believe it’s a bigger issue than it is.” He returned his gaze to Megs. “I’m fighting her on this, and I already have a call in to the district manager to get his approval.”
“Worst case, what does this mean? No loan?”
Adam shook his head. “More like the approval would wait until the will has cleared probate and ownership passes legally to you.” He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. “But I’m not going to make you hang around that long. You need the bakery up and running now rather than later.”
Yes, she did. She needed to get back to work. To feel purpose in her life again. “Do you think you’ll be able to get approval for my loan or am I wasting my time here?”
“It’s not a waste of time at all. But this is why the bank got the reputation it did. We were slow to act when people needed us.” He adjusted the things on his desk. “What I’m about to say is going to sound like I’m breaking one of your rules, but I’m sincere about this.” He looked up at her. “I intend to help you. No matter what I have to do or whose head I have to go above, I’ll make sure you get what you need.”
“Because you feel sorry for me?”
“Hell, no. You’re too strong for that. It’s because you’re on the right side of things, and I’m hoping my superiors will recognize this.” He got up from his chair and came to sit on the edge of the desk nearest her. “You’re a good business risk. Your bakery has a strong record of sales as well as a long history with us. Even if your name wasn’t at the top of the company masthead before now, you are responsible for that. Don’t let this setback take anything away from you. And that’s all this is, a setback. This isn’t over.”
Moisture gathered in her eyes, but she refused to cry in front of him. He believed in her. Even after all this time and all their history, he knew she could make this work. And if her enemy could believe that, then why couldn’t she? She gave a short nod. “It’s only the beginning.”
He smiled and winked at her. “That’s my girl.”