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My eyes grew wide and I watched Tuck’s eyes follow suit. “What?” He looked over at me, and I smiled, tears in my eyes, and I shrugged.
“Now, I know you two aren’t married, but it won’t be long. I told you, I know things.”
I was speechless, and I could tell that Tuck was as well by the way his mouth hung open with no words tumbling out. I had never considered that Lenora would want togiveTuck and me the bakery. I had always thought that we would try to buy it from her one day, but here she was, just handing us her baby.
“We can’t let you give it to us. Let us buy it. Please,” Tuck said, taking the words right out of my mouth.
“Nonsense. We don’t need the money, and you two are the closest things we have to kids to pass it down to,” Lenora said, batting her hand. “But don’t you think for a second I’m paying for donuts.”
Tuck and I laughed as our eyes filled with tears.
“Deal,” Tuck whispered.
Teddy spoke up. “I think this whole time, she was waiting for the two of you to find each other again. She needed to know her bakery would be in good hands before she could hang up her apron.” Teddy halted. “So, what do you say? Will you accept?”
Lenora held up her finger. “One rule first,” she said.
“What’s that?” Tuck asked.
“You never get so busy that you don’t let the bread rise.”
SEVENTY-SIX
TUCK
It was interesting,the way life happened. If someone would have told me a year ago that I would be the owner of The Baking Tin and practically living with Lettie in my childhood home on Peach Street, filling it with new and happy memories to combat the old, I would have told them they were delusional.
But there I was, living a life that I could have only dreamed of.
Lettie and I spent most of our time in the newly remodeled house, and while she still had hers, I’d heard her call Peach Street “home” on more than one occasion. And I didn’t mind that one bit. Gilbert had taken a liking to the new furniture and was particularly fond of his Serta dog bed that was decked out with toys and Kong balls full of peanut butter. We had settled in nicely, and I couldn’t help but think my mother would have liked to see this house filled with love.
Lettie was working late in the OR for a complicated surgery, so it was just Gilbert and me at home. I rubbed my leg, feeling a twinge of pain, and took down some ibuprofen from the cabinet. It had been an unseasonably warm February, and while my leg didn’t hurt often anymore, it would act up when there was a storm coming in.
“It’s gonna rain, Gilbert,” I said as I popped the ibuprofen into my mouth. I took a drink of water and swallowed them down and watched Gilbert’s ears perk up. “Don’t get any ideas. You know you can’t sleep in the bed.”
Gilbert tilted his head to the side with a little whine.
“Absolutely not. You’re the size of a horse.”
His head cocked to the other side. An indication that he knew just as well as I did that if there was thunder, I would surely be spooning a Wolfhound before the night was over.
“Yeah, yeah,” I said as I patted his head and walked toward the office to find some candles and lighters, just in case. Lettie and I kept the office just the way my mother had left it, only now, there was a framed black and white photograph of my mother and me on the wall above an old wooden desk. The photo had been taken in that exact room, my mother in a long white dress holding me in her arms looking out the large picture window. My eyes fixated outside and hers fixated on me.
Lettie had found it in a box of pictures in the attic and had it framed.
I opened the desk, taking out a couple of candles, and noticed a box. I pulled it out, remembering I had stowed it away in the bottom drawer when I’d moved it and hadn’t thought of it since. I sat in the leather chair next to the window. Gilbert sat at my feet as I opened the box. A stack of letters sat inside, all tied with a piece of yarn.
I took one from the stack and opened it.
Dear Lettie,
I saw you. You were walking into the clinic—your clinic now, or so I hear—and you were with a man. A man who kissed you quickly before you disappeared behind the door. It wasn’t a passionate kiss, nothing like the ones we shared so many years ago, but it was a familiar kiss. A kiss that said, “See you later.” It was a kiss that seemed to have happened many times before, and I couldn’t help but think that even if I got to kiss you every day for the rest of my life, I would never make it seem like it was nothing more than a habit. I would make a point to kiss you like it was the first and last time, every time.
But this wasn’t that kind of kiss, and after the door shut behind you, I watched the man walk happily to a parked car.
It was only a glimpse, but I knew it was you.
It was your hair that gave you away.
