“Thanks. Since having this one,” Megan said, “it’s taken a while to feel back to normal again. I’ll take all the compliments I can get. Enough about me. Let’s talk about you. You were in Paris, what, five years?”
“Six years in LA, then four in Paris. Man, that time flew past. I still have to pinch myself that it really happened to me.”
Megan pushed the stroller over a curb and onto the sidewalk, the movement causing the blanket to slip into the stroller. Inside, Megan’s seven-month-old slept, her rosebud mouth open in a miniature O. A lump rose in Robin’s throat. Her friend seemed to have it all.
“Baby Rae is beautiful,” she said.
Megan gazed down at the baby, a smile lighting her face. “She is, isn’t she?” She adjusted the blanket again, tucking it around the baby instead of over the stroller opening. “Okay, so I know you went to that cooking school in Los Angeles after high school, then what?”
“Yes, I was offered a job right out of my two-year culinary arts college at the Paris Patisserie in LA.” Robin remembered the thrill of landing her first job. The excitement of making it on her own. “It turned out I was mostly doing the grunt work, but I figured I was paying my dues. Eventually they let me decorate cakes, and then they even let me try out a few new recipes.”
“Aren’t you a bread family?”
She laughed. “Yeah, Grandma and Grandpa asked me about that too. I had planned to specialize in bread, maybe add some new twists to ours here at Fox, but when I took the pastry unit in college that all changed.” She remembered the feeling of that first class. It was like a whole new world had opened to her. “The colors, the creativity, the ways you can make a cake look like anything. It called to me. It was like art.”
Megan waved a hand to stop her. “Not ‘like’ art, itisart. I’ve seen what some of those people can do. Did you learn other pastries too?”
“I spent six months perfecting a croissant. I can make them in my sleep now. Which came in handy when I moved to Paris.”
“Yeah, how did that happen?”
She looked at the park sprawling out next to the water. The waves lapped at the boulders lining the far side. Across the harbor, a boat motored past the lighthouse. “One day after I’d displayed a cake I’d made start to finish on my own, a French guy walked in. Victor LaVigne. He kind of swept me off my feet. In a bakery sense.” She’d been so blind. On reflection, there had been other warning signs. Why had Victor needed a pastry chef from America, for instance?
Megan laughed. “How can someone sweep you off your feet ‘in a bakery sense’?”
She laughed too. But how else could she describe it? “After seeing some work I had done, he asked me to work with him in Paris. He said he’d just opened a bakery and needed someone with my talents.” And naivete, but she wouldn’t admit that part to Megan.
“Oh, right. That would do it.” Megan maneuvered the stroller around a frozen lump of snow.
Robin ran her hand over the back of a park bench as they walked past, its bumps and pits rough against her hand. “He told me it would be a tough go for a while, but eventually I could be his partner and we would take the baking world by storm.”
“Swoon! Was he handsome?”
“Megan!”
“What? I run a wedding planning business. I need to know if you’re a potential customer.” Her friend grinned at her.
“Yes. He is definitely handsome. He reminded me of a French Channing Tatum. The hair, the smoldering eyes.” Victorwashandsome. He also had a magnetism that pulled people into his circle. She was sure he would go on to great things—if he could keep his ego to a minimum and refrain from taking credit for other people’s work. Although, the French seemed to not care about that as much as she did.
“Sooooo.” Megan drew out the word. “Spill. Any sparks there? Ha! You’re blushing. There were sparks.”
“Of course there were sparks. It was a bakery. In Paris. With a Channing Tatum look-alike. It was practically a Hallmark movie.” Robin’s face heated even more.
They walked a few steps. Megan seemed like she was waiting Robin out. Finally she broke. “And?”
“And what?”
“Don’t play coy. Now you’re here. In Deep Haven. Unless you’re hiding a French hottie in the walk-in cooler, I’m guessing there’s more to the story.”
Megan had no idea how much more there was. No need to spill all her secrets though. Just enough to satisfy her friend’s curiosity. “Turns out real life isn’t like the movies. First of all, he made it clear he wasn’t interested in me in that way. Not that I’d set my heart on it or anything, just that I’d felt a few sparks, you know?”
“I’m so sorry, Robin. That’s awful.” Megan’s face grew sober, all hint of teasing gone.
She waved off her friend’s concern. “It’s fine. I didn’t really have any feelings for him.” It was true. After the first few months of working for Victor, she’d lost any sparks of attraction and focused on developing her pastry skills. Realizing that Victor was a glory-taking, egotistical fraud hadn’t hurt her romantically, just in all the other ways that mattered.
“I know something about falling for the wrong man.” Megan stopped walking. She stared out toward the water for a moment. Robin recalled hearing about Megan and how the father of her son Josh had abandoned them when he found out Josh was on the way. Megan gave herself a shake. “Enough of the serious stuff. Are you ready to turn back?”
Robin nodded. Megan had no idea how much she wanted that.
