“WE SHOULD GO to church today,” Rosemary announced the next morning as Tyler drank his third cup of coffee, trying to wake up.
His eyes widened. “Church?” His mom had worked on fund-raisers for churches when he was a kid, but he didn’t remember her attending.
“Yes. Sarah’s grandfather is the pastor and her uncle is the youth pastor. It’s good manners to go.”
“Mom, you don’t have to attend because your boss is the preacher’s granddaughter.” He didn’t mention that he would rather not go with his bruised face—his brother felt bad enough already.
“Will Sarah be there?” Nathan interjected, a flicker of interest in his eyes.
“Probably,” Rosemary said. “They’re having a baked potato feed to raise money for the youth group, and Sarah is providing cake and cookies for dessert.”
“Yeah, let’s go,” Nathan agreed immediately.
The enthusiastic tone startled Tyler, though it shouldn’t have. His brother had a thing for blondes.
Yet a flicker of unease went through him. It didn’t make sense, because while he was attracted to Sarah himself, he didn’t plan to act on it. Both she and Nathan were free agents.
Stop analyzing, Tyler ordered himself as he ate a mouthful of French toast.
“The service starts at eleven,” said his mother, visibly pleased. “Let’s go early and visit with people beforehand.”
Visiting wasn’t his thing, but however illogical his concern might be, it was a way to check on Sarah.
The sanctuary at the church was crowded and Tyler watched his mother and brother converse with different people. Nathan wasn’t as comfortable as he usually seemed in a group but was doing all right, while their mother appeared to be in her element.
Sarah arrived just before the service started. She sat at the front next to her father and an older woman. Her hair was loosened from its usual French braid and tumbled over her shoulders in thick cascades of pale gold that kept catching Tyler’s eye.
The opening scripture was read, but his thoughts drifted, and it didn’t seem long before everyone was heading into the social hall.
“Hi, everyone,” said Sarah from behind them.
Nathan smiled broadly. “Hello. It’s good to see you again. I’ve never gone to a baked potato feed. What do we do?”
“Just get into one of the lines. There are tons of toppings, including different types of chili, veggies, cheese, cheese sauce, salsa, sour cream, bacon...you name it.”
“What did you make?”
“A white-bean-and-chicken chili. And I contributed to the baked goods. Go enjoy yourselves. The youth group is participating in a coastal cleanup, so they’re raising money for expenses. Donations can be put in one of the baskets.”
“Is fifty dollars enough?”
Sarah laughed. “It would be an amazingly generous gesture, and you’d have their undying gratitude.”
Nathan winked. “I’d much rather have yours.”
He was acting so much like his old self—charm capped off by easy flirting—that Tyler stared. It was as if those dreary months in the hospital and rehab, the multiple surgeries and physical therapy sessions had never happened.
“Smooth talker,” Sarah shot back. “You’d better get in line before the sour cream is gone.”
“Yes, let’s eat,” Rosemary agreed.
They got in line, leaving Tyler alone with Sarah. “Don’t you want some?” she asked.
“Sure, I’m just surprised to see you here. Can the shop manage without you?”
“It’s fine. I come to church whenever possible, which isn’t often this time of year, I’ll admit.”
“I’m glad you could make it. You know, I think my brother likes you,” he said awkwardly.
Sarah shook her head. “I think your brother just likes flirting. He’s making up to my cousin Vickie at the moment.”
She pointed, and sure enough, Nathan was chatting with one of the women serving the potatoes. She appeared to be in her early twenties, had long blond hair in a high ponytail, a curvaceous figure and bubbly personality, judging from the way she was laughing and flirting right back.
“Are all the women in your family blonde and enthusiastic?” Tyler asked curiously. When asking about the swimming pool, he’d met Tessa McKinley, the owner-manager of Poppy Gold, who’d introduced him to another cousin, Jamie Fullerton. Sarah had also mentioned that the woman who worked the front counter at the sweet shop was family. They all seemed to have the same fair looks and vibrant personality.
Sarah shrugged. “A few have golden-brown hair or darker. As for ‘enthusiastic,’ I suppose we’re energetic, but that’s because we have so much to do.”
“Don’t the men help?”
“We all work hard, but we also enjoy ourselves. Right now, I’m going to enjoy a baked potato.”
She got into one of the lines, which had shortened. Tyler followed and chose “five alarm firehouse” chili to top his potato, while Sarah’s bowl resembled a salad when she was done. There weren’t many chairs left in the social hall, so they went into the courtyard and sat on a bench under an arbor.
“Did anything else happen last night?” he asked quietly after a few minutes. “Any calls or other problems?”
“No,” she replied in an equally soft tone. “I finished baking before 8:00 p.m. and went to bed. Everything was quiet.”
“It isn’t even dark by eight this time of the year.”
“Yeah, but I go to the bakery at four in the morning.”
Tyler winced. “I’m usually still up working until then.”
“In that case, I wouldn’t suggest becoming a professional baker,” Sarah advised.
She dug a forkful of broccoli and cheese sauce from her bowl and munched it down. Tyler’s body reacted as he watched her lick a trace of sauce from her lips, a response that didn’t seem appropriate given their location. What’s more, she wasn’t trying to tease him—she was simply relishing her lunch.
“When did you leave the shop this morning?” he asked hoarsely.
Sarah covered her mouth as she yawned. “After nine. I wouldn’t have gone in at all, but the shift supervisor needed time off to visit a sick relative in Oregon.”
“Surely your staff knows what they’re doing.”
“Yes, but somebody needs to have final responsibility, keeping an eye on the clock and making sure we don’t fall behind. Now that Rosemary has the office whipped into shape, I’ll have time to get more supervisors trained, also some catering managers.” Suddenly Sarah looked guilty and glanced around.
“Is something wrong?”
“Not exactly, but I wouldn’t want anyone in the family to hear me say something like that,” Sarah answered in a low tone. “Aunt Babs was helping in the office, but she doesn’t have Rosemary’s gift for juggling everything. Then she broke her leg. She had to stop working while it heals.”
“How did it happen?”
“She was doing a 12K run when one of the other runners tripped her.”
“Oh.” Tyler’s vision of a gray-haired lady with osteoporosis and balance problems instantly vanished. He should have known better, seeing as she was related to Sarah. “Then my mother’s job is temporary until your aunt returns.”
“Not exactly.” Sara smiled impishly. “Aunt Babs has wanted me to find a replacement for her, so Rosemary has the office manager’s job for as long she wants it. Sorry, I know that isn’t what you hoped to hear.”
“I’m learning to be philosophical about it.”
Tyler still wondered if his mother would get to a point where the stress was overwhelming, but right now she was reveling in her success. Nathan was harder to evaluate, though he’d finally agreed to start doing image rehearsal therapy with Dr. Romano, and he was doing the recommended exercises. On the other hand, he continued refusing medication. Tyler understood not wanting to continue taking the one for nightmares if it didn’t work, but there were others that might help the PTSD.
“Hey.” Sarah tossed a wadded-up napkin at him. “Your face went blank.”
“Just thinking.”
“What’s going on behind that mask?”
Mask?
Tyler had never thought of it that way. “I was thinking about my brother,” he admitted. “He refuses to take medication to help the post-traumatic stress.”
“I understand Nathan hopes to return to active duty. Maybe he’s worried how taking meds will look on his record.”
Tyler frowned. He should have thought of that.
Sarah poked at the contents of her bowl; she’d eaten the toppings, leaving most of her potato behind. She jumped to her feet. “I’m going back for a refill. Want some more?”
He went with her and saw there was plenty left, despite the large turnout. “How often do you have events like this?” he asked curiously.
“Once a month, though sometimes it’s pie day or finger food. There’s always something going on.”
The servers had left their posts, presumably to eat, so Tyler took another baked potato and loaded it with chili and cheese, while Sarah added a fresh assortment of veggies to her bowl.
Nathan was in a corner, still flirting with the blonde he’d met at the serving table, and their mother was deep in discussion with a group of women on the opposite side of the room. They both seemed quite happy without him, so Tyler stayed with Sarah as she joined her father, standing nearby with several other men.
“Did you get enough, Dad?”
Kurt patted his stomach. “I’m doing okay. Good afternoon, Tyler,” he said, nodding.
“Hello, Mr. Fullerton.”
“Please, it’s Kurt.” He smiled, but Tyler didn’t think the older man cared for him. Aside from what Sarah may have said, it couldn’t have helped that his initial reaction to Kurt had been distrustful. Tyler still wondered if the relationship with his mother went beyond friendship, but he no longer had misgivings about the other man.
Kurt was, in his own way, helping Nathan more than any doctor.
* * *
BELATEDLY, SARAH REALIZED she should make introductions.
“Everyone, this is Tyler Prentiss. Tyler, you know my father, but this is Reverend George Fullerton, my grandfather. Reverend Daniel Fullerton, one of my uncles. He’s the youth pastor here. And this is Milt Fullerton, one of my great-uncles.”
A general chorus of greetings followed, and Grandpa George struck up a conversation with Tyler.
Sarah focused on her food. Tyler attending church and the baked potato feed had startled her. She suspected he didn’t socialize that much, so he must have come for his mom and brother’s sake.
“Dad, I ran by your house before church and put an apricot cobbler in the fridge,” she told him between bites. “I was going to bring it to dinner tonight, but thought you might like to have it instead. Just don’t eat the entire pan in one sitting.”
“Thanks, darling.” Kurt’s eyes gleamed. She didn’t sell old-style cobbler at the bakery, but he loved it.
“I like cobbler, too,” Uncle Daniel complained.
“Maybe I could give Dad the lasagna instead.”
Uncle Daniel shook his head. “On second thought, I’m sure my brother deserves a treat.”
Sarah chuckled. He shared cooking duties with Aunt Emma, but they no longer made lasagna...not since he’d forgotten a batch was in the oven and had gone to play a spur-of-the-moment softball game with the youth group. The volunteer fire department called it the Great Lasagna Inferno and never failed to bring it up at annual fund-raising events.
Uncle Daniel checked the clock on the wall. “I need to make sure the youth group is helping with cleanup. I’ll see you later, Sarah.”
A few minutes later, Tyler said Nathan looked tired and that they should leave. Once he and his family were gone, Great-Uncle Milt frowned. “So that’s Tyler Prentiss. He looks like a prizefighter with those bruises. I wonder what the story is behind them.”
“It’s nothing to worry about,” Sarah assured him hastily. “His brother is an army captain who was injured in a bomb blast and has PTSD nightmares. There was a mix-up about whether Rosemary got too close when Nathan was asleep. Tyler jumped between them and got hit.”
“What about the incident at the shop?”
“Incident?” Kurt asked.
“I told you about it, Dad,” Sarah said lightly. “Tyler was concerned when he learned Rosemary was working for me. He thought she might have taken on too much. That’s all.”
* * *
KURT RECALLED ROSEMARY saying that Tyler had wanted her to quit her job, but he hadn’t imagined anything more dramatic than a young man having problems seeing his mother in a new light.
For himself, he’d grown up with working parents and his childhood couldn’t have been better. Margaret Fullerton had been elected mayor of Glimmer Creek more times than anyone could remember. At seventy-five, she’d finally insisted on retiring. His dad was still senior pastor at the church, but contemplating retirement, as well.
Kurt knew some of his attitudes might be outdated, but not about women in the workplace. Well, initially it had been strange to serve in the military with the opposite sex, but he’d learned to respect them as fellow soldiers, with just as much courage and dedication as any man. And having them around had reminded him of what he was fighting for back home.
“Tyler was under a huge amount of stress when we met the first time,” Sarah explained. “He’s apologized.”
“If you say so,” Uncle Milt said. “And I suppose the business in the Chicago area doesn’t mean anything here in Glimmer Creek. I just don’t like having anything come up on a background check.”
“Stop worrying. I’ll see you all later, I’m going to help with cleanup.” She blew kisses at them and hurried away.
Kurt looked at his uncle. “Chicago?”
Uncle Milt’s frown deepened. “A building complex in Illinois collapsed a few weeks ago while under construction. Tyler Prentiss worked on the initial design, then another architect took over before the work started. The building owner is trying to implicate Prentiss, though nothing I’ve read suggests there’s much basis for it. Still, I’m reluctant to see Sarah accepting his architectural advice until everything is resolved.”
Kurt made a face. “I agree, though you know how stubborn she is. I wonder why Rosemary hasn’t mentioned the incident. She’s talked about Nathan’s difficulties, but nothing about Tyler.”
“Nathan is a soldier and was injured through no error of his own. Mrs. Prentiss can’t be a hundred percent certain about her other son. She might not want to discuss the situation for that reason.”
Perhaps, but Kurt wanted to speak with his daughter. He wasn’t comfortable about the late-night calls she’d been receiving, either, even if they had stopped.
“Is something else wrong?” asked Uncle Milt.
“No, no. Sarah says I worry too much.”
Uncle Milt laughed. “We never stop worrying about our kids. You didn’t believe me when I told you that all those years ago, but you’ve learned it now. The trick is learning to let go.”
Kurt remembered when Uncle Milt had told him that...the day he’d enlisted and seen his mother with red eyes. She hadn’t tried to prevent him and had been proud that he wanted to serve, but she’d worried for his safety.
“You were right,” he admitted. “Thanks for the info, Uncle Milt. I need to check on something. See you soon.”
He went straight to the kitchen to ask Sarah why she hadn’t told him more about Tyler Prentiss.
* * *
“WE NEED TO TALK, sweetheart.”
Sarah looked up and saw her father wearing his outraged protective expression.
“Okay, just a minute.” She finished washing the insert to her slow cooker and dried her hands. “Yes?”
“Why didn’t you tell me that Tyler Prentiss was in trouble in Illinois?” he asked in a low voice.
Sarah shot a quick look around the kitchen. A number of the women and kids from the youth group were still cleaning up, so she reassembled her cooker and held it out. “Carry this to the car for me and then we’ll talk.”
She grabbed another container filled with baking pans and platters and led the way to the parking lot. Once everything was stowed in her trunk, she turned and gave her father a stern look.
“Listen to me, Dad, Tyler isn’t in trouble. There’s just an investigation into who might be responsible for a building that collapsed.”
“That sounds like trouble to me. If they decide he was negligent, he might go to jail.”
The thought gave Sarah a queer sensation in her midriff, even though she believed Tyler couldn’t be responsible.
While she rarely looked up people online, she’d read several articles about the building collapse. A special commission was being convened to investigate and a flurry of lawsuits had been filed, but none were specifically against Tyler except the one filed by the owner, Milo Corbin. Tyler was considered a hero by the press and rescue crews, and the injured workers had lauded him for helping to save their lives. The only sour note seemed to be Corbin and the second architect, who were trying to shift blame.
Rather fishy, in her opinion.
Sarah shook herself. “They’re probably including Tyler’s name in the investigation as a matter of form. The second architect made changes to the design that Tyler had advised weren’t safe. I don’t see how he could be responsible—if I change a recipe and it doesn’t come out, that’s my fault.”
Kurt didn’t look convinced. “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”
“That isn’t fair, Dad. Why are you so prejudiced against him? Tyler was uptight about Rosemary working for me when he first arrived, but shouldn’t you approve of him staying to help Nathan?”
“I suppose. But I’m going to have another architect review any advice or blueprints Prentiss gives you.”
Sarah counted to ten. While she loved her father and wanted him to be happy, she also wanted him to respect her choices. A lot of the time he just took action without discussing it with her or finding out if she actually needed something done.
What about his life?
He hadn’t even taken a vacation since she’d opened the bakery, because he wanted to “be here” in case she needed him.
“Dad, don’t worry about it.”
“An army buddy’s son is an architect in San Jose. I’ll have him take a look at your building.”
“Listen to me. I’ll handle whatever needs to be done. By the way, Rosemary and Nathan don’t know about what happened in Illinois,” Sarah said, partly as a distraction and partly to warn him.
“He should have told them.”
“Maybe, but he asked me not to tell his mother. It’s uncomfortable, but there are complications to telling Rosemary, too. He’s concerned that it would be too stressful.”
Her father scowled. “Rosemary mentioned that Tyler tries to make decisions for her.”
“You do same thing with me,” Sarah told him carefully. She didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but she also needed him to understand.
“No, I don’t.” Yet his expression churned. “Uh, well, maybe. Once in a while. But I wasn’t there when you were a little girl and I want to make up for it.”
“We’ve talked about this a hundred times. There’s nothing to make up for. I had a great childhood. And when I visited you in Japan and other places, I got to see parts of the world I might never have seen otherwise.”
“What’s wrong with me doing things for my daughter?”
“Nothing, but I think you still see me as that frightened little kid whose mother abandoned her. I’m not. I’m grown up and happy and don’t need my hand held all the time.”
“That isn’t what I’m doing.” He stuck his chin out and Sarah knew he hadn’t changed his mind.
She kissed his cheek. “Just think about it. You’re so busy trying to take of me, you aren’t taking care of yourself.”
And you’re driving me nuts.
The silent admonition made her feel lousy, but they both needed their lives back.
* * *
SARAH ARRIVED AT the bakery later than usual on Tuesday morning and was dismayed to find the electric catering vehicles weren’t plugged in. She thought she remembered taking care of it the night before as usual, but couldn’t be positive.
Hurriedly, she connected the plugs to the charging stations and rushed inside.
“Did you hear anything odd outside last night?” she asked Regina, who’d returned the day before.
The night supervisor looked up from the dough she was making into cinnamon rolls. “Odd in what way?”
“I just found the catering vehicles unplugged. We probably won’t have enough power to make all the deliveries—we used them a lot yesterday.”
Regina shook her head. “Everything was quiet and the swing crew didn’t say anything. I’ll contact Poppy Gold and ask them to loan us carts to help. It’ll be a pain, but better than being late with breakfast.”
“I’ll take over here while you make the call.”
Sarah rapidly began filling pans with rolls, trying to put the problem with the catering vehicles out of her mind. The Poppy Gold breakfast included a large roll for each guest, which was a heck of a lot of cinnamon rolls every day. And that didn’t count the ones they sold in the shop. Sometimes when she was trying to sleep, cinnamon rolls marched across her eyes in an unending succession.
It was a rough morning with breakfast barely getting delivered on time. They were only able to make a single trip with the regular catering vehicles and had to rely on Poppy Gold for the rest. Poppy Gold employees then also had to pick up food supplies for the two business conferences starting that morning, which couldn’t have helped their own schedule.
Sarah felt terrible about it and sent a text to her cousin explaining that she’d pay for the time and trouble. Tessa swiftly sent a text back, refusing, but Sarah planned to ignore that.
Then her father came by before leaving on his weekly shopping trip to Stockton and learned about the problem. He had a fit, calling it vandalism and saying she had to make a report to the police department.
“No. I can’t be positive I plugged the vehicles in last night,” she told him. “I could have forgotten.”
“Not likely.”
“It’s still a possibility.”
Looking aggravated, he finally left, muttering about stubborn daughters taking too much after their fathers.
Sarah didn’t think the day could get worse, but at 2:00 p.m., Aurelia walked into the kitchen with Tomoko Gates, who worked at City Hall.
Sarah waved at her. “Hey, Tomoko. What can I do for you?”
Tomoko looked miserable. “I have to do a surprise check as the health inspector,” she explained. “There was a call...”
A call?
Sarah fastened a smile on her face as she gave Tomoko access to every corner of the shop. Yet inside she was roiling. Strange coincidences were piling up faster than she could dismiss them.