Page 48 of Windward Hearts

So. She was going to win by… feeding him delicious dessert. And giving him some wine that, yes, she had purchased at the grocery store, but he would probably be too impressed by her cake to comment upon it.

At least, this had been the nefarious plan that she had landed upon after texting her brother to ask what he’d meant about the comment and only getting “LOL” in response.

Little punk, she thought, shaking her head fondly. It was awfully fun to be childish with someone who had known her when she was a child. Goofy, yes. Maybe a little incomprehensible to others. It certainly seemed to baffle Garrett, who had a cordial but not extremely close relationship with his sister. But it was extremely fun.

Also, Eleanor hadn’t taken on a real baking challenge in a while, not since she had gotten so busy with the bookshop.

So, she had dug out her old stash of cookbooks, then perused a few of the baking volumes that she stocked for the store. She had ultimately settled on a baklava-inspired bundt cake recipe which looked simply beautiful in the glossy, full-page photograph in the cookbook. She had carefully chopped and glazed the nuts that went into the topping, then made a pistachio cake for the base. A honey glaze went into the whole thing to keep the cake as moist as the original dessert tended to be when done well.

The whole project had taken hours. Eleanor’s kitchen was a wreck. And it was all worth it.

Or… it would have been. Except when Eleanor went to flip the cake, half of it stuck to the pan instead of sliding smoothly out. This caused her to fumble the bundt pan and the plate that she was attempting to turn it onto. She caught everything before the porcelain plate crashed to the floor and shattered into a million pieces…

But not before the cake broke in half. Some stayed stuck to the pan. The other half landed on the floor with a tragic splat.

For a long moment, Eleanor froze. All she could do was look at the cake, which now adorned several square feet of her kitchen floor and most of her shoes.

“I guess I used too much of the glaze,” she said to herself. Then, because the only other option was to cry over spilled cake, she began to laugh until tears leaked from her eyes.

She kept chuckling to herself as she cleaned up the terrible mess she had made. This was what she got for getting too prideful, she supposed. Or maybe it was some kind of a lesson about revenge, and how you shouldn’t pursue it, even if your revenge took the form of cake.

Or maybe it was just one of those things.

When the last smudges of sticky honey were finally wiped away, she grabbed her phone, thankful that she had at least done most of the preparation for the dinner. She still had to throw the chicken in the oven so that it would be hot when Shane, Winnie, and Garrett arrived, but most of the actual labor was complete.

She didn’t have the time or ingredients to make another dessert, however, so she dialed Riverstone Kitchen.

“Hello, you’ve reached Riverstone Kitchen. This is Hope, how can I help you?”

“Hope, hi!” Eleanor said, pleased to have reached her friend. She supposed that it didn’t technically matter which restaurant employee answered the phone, but it was always nice to talk to Hope. “I have something of a culinary emergency.”

“Oh, dear,” Hope said. “Well, you’ve called the right place. What do you need?”

“A dessert, stat,” Eleanor replied. “My brother and Winnie are coming over for dinner. We had a bet; it’s a long story. Anyway, I’m cooking to impress, and I made a cake but it ended up all over the floor.”

“Oof,” Hope said sympathetically. “I assume you spent a lot of time and effort on it? Nobody ever drops the thing that they made in five minutes.”

“Of course,” Eleanor agreed with a chuckle. “Anyway, what’s your fanciest dessert that you can have for us in, say, the next half an hour?”

“A tiramisu,” Hope answered instantly. “The one that Jared makes is phenomenal and he always keeps a few full ones for sale. I’ll triple-check to make certain that nobody has already called to reserve them, but I’m about ninety-nine percent certain. Hang on; I’ll be right back.”

Eleanor crossed her fingers as she waited for Hope to get back to the phone. Fortunately, her friend was very speedy.

“Okay, confirming that we have a tiramisu with your name on it,” Hope said after a minute’s worth of hold music. “You can come get it any time before we close.”

“Oh, I’m getting in the car right now,” Eleanor said, doing a quick round of mental math. If she hurried, she could get to Riverstone Kitchen and back before she had to throw the chicken in the oven. That way, it wouldn’t get cold and she wouldn’t be late for dinner with Shane and Winnie.

“Perfect,” Hope said cheerfully. “See you soon.”

Barely two minutes later, Eleanor was out the door and behind the wheel of her car. She was just pulling out of her driveway when her car’s phone integration lit up, showing that she had a call incoming from June. She pressed the button on the display that would let her answer the call hands-free.

“Juney, hi,” she said. “I’m in the car. What’s up?”

There was a pause.

“Oh,” June said, something strange in her voice. “If this isn’t a good time, I can talk later.”

June sounded as though she was upset and trying to hide it.