The Tea Shop on Lavender Lane (Life in Icicle Falls) (17 page)

Ten minutes later the front door slammed, too, and Bailey was gone.

Cecily stayed on her barstool.
Good riddance. Let Sam deal with her.

The condo seemed suddenly very quiet. This was ridiculous. She should call Bailey and apologize, ask her to come back. She picked up her cell phone and fingered the numbers.

Or Bailey could call
her
and apologize. Bailey had been the one who’d escalated their conversation into a full-fledged fight. Bailey had been the one to pull in an ally. Cecily set the phone back down.

But she’d acted like a little girl with her first crush. How pathetic was that? She picked up the phone again. It was wrong to be so suspicious of her sister. She sat there for a few minutes, trying to decide what to say.

“I’m sorry” would be good for starters.

Bailey would be at Sam’s house by now. Cecily made the call.

It rolled over to voice mail.

So Bailey wasn’t even going to take her call? That was mature.

Well, then. There was no point in leaving a message. She hit End and pushed the phone away.

Chapter Fourteen

“Y
ou really should work things out with Cecily,” Samantha said once she and Bailey were settled at her kitchen table with mugs of chocolate mint tea.

“How can I? She’s being completely unreasonable!”

Samantha studied her baby sister. Bailey could be a bit of a drama queen. “That’s out of character for Cec.” Cecily usually assumed the role of peacemaker in the family. “Tell me exactly what happened.”

“I already told you, Sammy. She just went ballistic on me, accused me of trying to steal Todd.”

“Well, are you?”

Bailey’s cheeks took on a guilty flush. “We’re in business together, for goodness’ sake.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Well, I shouldn’t have to,” Bailey said and frowned at her mug.

“He is gorgeous,” Samantha said. And a ladies’ man. She’d seen him in action long before Cecily hit town. He had a gift for flirting, and she suspected he was a bit of a bad boy, which was probably why Bailey was attracted to him. Brandon Wallace all over again. If Samantha had known Bailey was going to fall for Todd, she would’ve done everything she could to discourage her from going into business with him. She should have known. Pregnancy was making her lose her mental edge.

“And he’s really nice and really supportive. And I like being around him. But that doesn’t mean I’d deliberately steal him from my own sister.”

The heck it didn’t. Women did crazy things when they were in love.

“Anyway, I didn’t even know she was with Todd at first,” Bailey continued. “I thought she was with Luke.”

So had Samantha. She shook her head. “What’s with you two? Todd Black is probably bad news for both of you.”

“No, he’s not,” Bailey insisted, giving herself away. The fresh pink on her face showed that she realized it.

“I have just two words for you,” Samantha said.
“Brandon Wallace.”

“He’s not like Brandon. He’s...more mature.”

“An older Brandon,” Samantha said.

“You’re the one who told me what a good businessman he is,” Bailey reminded her.

“Yes, businessman. Not boyfriend. He’s a player.”

“I don’t know why we’re having this conversation,” Bailey said crossly. “I’m not going to steal him from Cec.”

“I believe you,” Samantha said. “But I’m warning you...just in case.”

“The one you need to be warning is Cec. She’s the one who’s acting crazy.”

“Why don’t you call her?” Samantha suggested.

Bailey’s expression turned mulish. “No. I’m done talking to her.”

“What? You’re not going to speak to her for the rest of your lives?”

“No. I’m not going to speak to her until she stops acting crazy.”

Cecily acting crazy was hard to imagine. But it was obviously true. Someone was going to have to pull her out of Looney Land, and it looked as though that someone would have to be Samantha.

She put her plan into action later in the week, casually wandering into Cecily’s office, where she was busy working on a new Sweet Dreams ad campaign. “Are you past wanting to strangle our sister?”

“For the moment,” Cecily said.

“Good. I think the stress of you murdering Bailey would be bad for the baby.”

That brought a reluctant smile to Cecily’s face.

“How about coming over for dinner Friday night?”

Cecily made a face. “I said I was past strangling her. I didn’t say I wanted to eat with her. I need a Bailey break.”

“So come and have dinner with Blake and me. I’ll send Bailey over to Mom’s.”

“All right,” Cecily said, “on one condition. No lectures about how we need to make up.”

Samantha held up both hands. “I wouldn’t dream of it. Sisterly mediation is your department.”

If Cecily caught the irony of that remark, she didn’t let on. Anyway, Samantha wasn’t too worried. It wasn’t in Cecily’s nature to stay mad for long. Bailey’s, either. They’d work out this small hiccup after Samantha got Cecily on track with Luke again.

Back in her office, she called down to his.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“Dinner Friday at my place,” Samantha said. “I’m having an impromptu party.”

“Sounds good. What do you want me to bring?”

“Just yourself,” Samantha said. “Come on over around six-thirty.”

And that took care of that, she thought as she returned to work. Once they got Cecily’s confused hormones sorted out, everything would be fine.

* * *

After her shift at the lodge, Bailey went to Lace and Lovelies to pick out curtains for her tearoom. It would be a little embarrassing to shop there after the job with Tina hadn’t worked out—but, hey, Bailey wasn’t going to hold a grudge. Anyway, it was good for business owners to support each other.

The shop door chimed as Bailey entered, catching Tina in the middle of a conversation with Shelley Graves, who worked at Bavarian Brews. “If she doesn’t break all the china in that tea shop, it’ll be a...” Tina suddenly noticed Bailey and swallowed the rest of her sentence.

Too late. Bailey had heard, and they both knew it. Awkward silence filled the shop, and Bailey could feel her whole face sizzling like a stove top. If she were Samantha, she would’ve walked on in as if she owned the world. If she were Cecily (well, the old pre–Todd Black Cecily), she’d have smiled and been diplomatic. But she was neither, and she was hurt and humiliated.

She turned and walked right back out. She’d go to Wenatchee, Seattle, the end of the world, anyplace but Tina’s shop, to find her lace curtains.

Tina’s voice followed her out the door. “Bailey, wait!”

She just kept on walking. People had been mean in the big city, but here, back home in Icicle Falls, she’d expected better. What a dope. People were people, no matter where you lived.

Now she heard footsteps behind her. “Bailey!”

Okay, to keep walking would be rude.
Put on your big-girl panties.
She turned and forced herself to smile pleasantly.

Tina’s face was as red as hers probably was. “Bailey.”

This was so awkward. Bailey raised one hand. “You’re right. I’m a klutz.”

And, as Tina had seen, it always got worse when she was nervous. Maybe she
would
break all the china in her tea shop.

“And I’m a bitch. I’m sorry, Bailey. Please come back. Whatever you want, I’ll give you fifty percent off.”

That wasn’t a bargain; it was extortion. “Let’s forget it happened,” Bailey said. Heck, she’d done her share of gossiping.

“Only if you let me give you a discount.”

Bailey wasn’t a robber, but she wasn’t stupid, either. “Okay. Make it thirty percent, and you’ve got a deal.”

Tina nodded, and they started back to the shop. “I do think the tea shop is a great idea,” she said. “I don’t know why I was being so catty.”

Bailey could sum it up in two words:
Shelley Graves.
Shelley was one of the worst gossips in town. She also didn’t like Bailey. No doubt that had something to do with the fact that her boyfriend had dumped her for Bailey way back in high school. Pretty insulting for a senior girl to lose her boyfriend to a lowly freshman. Greg Trotter had gone off to Stanford and forgotten them both, but Shelley had a memory an elephant would envy. She’d probably been happy to talk to anyone who came into Bavarian Brews about the headlines Bailey had made when her business went under.

Of course, Shelley had pretended to have forgiven and forgotten. She was all syrupy smiles whenever Bailey came into Bavarian Brews for a frappé or coffee, but those were about as real as her boobs. (There’d been plenty of women in town more than willing to share the news when she got a boob job after her husband left her and moved to Wyoming. Boy, there was never a shortage of gossip in a small town.) Shelley hadn’t done much with her life, so Bailey supposed it made her happy when other people failed.

“It’s all right,” she said to Tina.

“Is it true you’re going into business with Todd Black?”

Bailey nodded.

“Lucky you. That man has half the women in town with their panties on fire.”

“He’s seeing my sister,” Bailey said.

“Oh.” That shut Tina up for a moment. “Well, I’m sure the food will be great,” she said as they walked into the shop.

“If she doesn’t poison anyone,” Shelley murmured on her way out. “See you later, Tina.”

Better not come into the tea shop,
Bailey thought.
Or
I might just be tempted to poison
you.

Never mind, she told herself. There would always be people who wanted you to fail. But she wasn’t going to, not this time.

* * *

Cecily arrived at Samantha’s house on Friday to find the dining room table set for four. Their mother’s big crystal vase sat in the center, filled with flowers from Lupine Floral. Okay. This wasn’t just for her.

“Who else is coming?” she asked Samantha.

“Um, Luke,” Samantha said and skedaddled into the kitchen.

Luke? What was going on here? As if she couldn’t guess.

She followed her sister out to the kitchen. “What are you up to?”

Samantha got suddenly busy checking the lasagna in the oven. “Nothing.”

“You are such a rotten liar.” And an equally bad matchmaker. She should leave right now. Samantha could tell Luke she’d gotten sick.

She was about to announce her departure when she heard male voices drifting into the kitchen from the direction of the front door. Great. He was already here.

She could still go. She should. This little setup looked so...obvious. And Luke would think she was in on it, that she’d changed her mind about their relationship.

“You know, I’m going to have to leave. I’m getting a headache.”

Samantha set the lasagna pan on the stove and then turned her stern older-sister gaze on Cecily. “You try to leave, and I’ll give you a serious headache.”

Then she walked out of the kitchen–family room area and went to the formal dining room, obviously expecting Cecily to follow.

Cecily trailed her, irritation growing with each step. Samantha had every right to run Sweet Dreams Chocolates, but she sure didn’t have the right to run her sisters’ lives.

Luke and Blake stood in the dining room chatting while Blake opened a bottle of wine. Luke looked surprised to see Cecily and then pleased. “Hi, Cec.”

It would be so incredibly rude to bolt. Anyway, they were still friends. They could have dinner without anyone—namely Luke—getting his hopes up. “Hi,” she said. “You’re a brave man to come and eat my sister’s cooking,” she joked.

“Hey, I’m just as good a cook as you,” Samantha protested.

“Well, we all know who the real chef in the family is,” Blake teased.

Bailey. For a moment Cecily felt guilty that they hadn’t made up, but all she had to do to get over that was remind herself what a sneaky brat her sister was.

“Our man’s got excellent taste in wine,” Blake said, holding up the bottle of merlot, which bore an Icicle Winery label.

“Ed told me it’s one of his most popular reds.”

Blake began pouring the wine. “I think he says that about half the wines he has at D’vine Wines. But this is a good one, and it’s one of our favorites.”

“And it’s perfect with lasagna,” Samantha said.

Luke rubbed his hands together. “Lasagna’s my favorite.”

“Good food, good wine and good friends. It doesn’t get any better than that,” Samantha said.

“You sound like you’re channeling Waldo,” Cecily said as Blake handed her a glass of wine. Ironic, considering how crazy their now-deceased stepfather used to make Samantha.

“He couldn’t run a business worth squat, but he did have the right attitude about life,” Samantha said.

Blake started to hand Luke a glass, but he motioned to Samantha after saying, “Ladies first.”

She shook her head. “I’m not much of a wine drinker. Anyway, I’m not drinking these days.”

“Not for another six and a half months,” added Blake, beaming.

“Wait a minute,” Luke said slowly, “are you guys—”

“Yep,” Blake said.

“Sweet.” Luke slapped him on the back. “Man, you are going to love being a dad.”

That was certainly a different reaction to the idea of having kids than Todd had displayed, Cecily thought as Blake and Luke took their wine.

“I wouldn’t mind having more myself someday,” Luke said, and his glance slipped to Cecily.

Why, oh, why wasn’t she in love with him?

“So, babe, you need me to help you carry stuff out from the kitchen?” Blake asked.

“Yes, thanks,” Samantha said, and they hurried off, leaving Cecily and Luke alone like two people on a blind date.

Cecily suddenly felt tongue-tied. This was ridiculous. She’d known Luke for years. “We haven’t seen your mom and Serena at the gift shop for a while,” she said. “What’s with that?”

“Serena’s on chocolate restriction.”

“Chocolate restriction?” Was there any worse punishment? “What did she do?”

“She sneaked into the cookies after my mom told her she couldn’t have any—ate every last one out of the cookie jar. Talk about a sugar high. Then, when Mom got after her, she called Mom a ‘doodyhead.’”

Cecily snickered.

“Yeah, it’s funny now, but Mom wasn’t laughing at the time.” Luke let out a long-suffering sigh. “I think the kid’s going through chocolate withdrawal. She’s a bear to be around.”

“I’d be a bear, too, if I couldn’t have chocolate.”

“Well, maybe,” Luke said, “but that’s hard to imagine. In fact, it’s hard to imagine you ever being anything but nice.”

He should have been in her condo a couple of nights ago.

Samantha and Blake were back now with lasagna, tossed salad and French bread, and the four of them sat down to dinner, two couples about to enjoy a meal together.

Except that Cecily and Luke weren’t a couple.

But sometimes it felt as though they were. Conversation flowed easily, and it was as if she and Luke had never had their awkward moment on Lost Bride Trail. Later there was plenty of laughter as they played Hearts and ate gingerbread cookies from Cass’s bakery.

“Okay,” Samantha said. “Cecily’s got the lowest score. We need to get her.”

“Who’s second lowest?” Cecily asked suspiciously.