but the best for our Isabelle. Aaaannnd,” Maddie said dramatically, piping a huge swirl of peony-pink icing onto an oversize strawberry cupcake. “Edgar Clayton is probably my most loyal customer ever.” She finished the cupcake with a flourish, then licked an errant glob of icing off her wrist.
“Having worked for Edgar for seven years,” Isabelle said, “I have to say that ‘loyal’ defines him quite well. He’s always been diligent about distributing Maddie’s business cards to tourists.”
“Word of mouth. My kind of magic.” Maddie said, never taking her eyes off the pearlized sugar spray she used to decorate the next order. “That, and unique product ideas,” she added.
Sarah finished her inventory and handed the list to Maddie. “Just how many recipes have you patented now?”
“Twenty. And at two grand a pop for legal fees, I haven’t been able to go shopping or on vacation for three years. But, it’s all been worth it.”
Maddie looked just past Sarah. Next to the register was a three-foot-high, perilously thin, black glass vase. Streaming out of the top of the vase were jungle-red anthurium flowers, green palms and white orchids. They were from Alex Perkins, of Chicago’s esteemed investment firm Ashton and Marsh. Sarah’s uncle, George Regeski, had helped Maddie prepare a business plan for franchising her “made-on-the-spot cupcakes and Italian café” concept last year. George had scoured his network of investment firms and had finally found some interest at Ashton and Marsh. Their initial response was lukewarm, but they were willing to “take a meeting,” Uncle George had told Maddie last November.
Since then, Maddie’s nerves had been on overload. She had worked ceaselessly since high school graduation for this one opportunity to prove to herself that she was accomplished. This was her blue ribbon; her Oscar.
Because Maddie was the only child of a single mother, Babs Strong, who worked in a bread-manufacturing plant, Maddie hadn’t had the money or means to go to college. But no one was more passionate about acquiring a business degree than Maddie.
Maddie had learned accounting and business management by copying the reading lists of the required classes her wealthier friends took in college. She read all the same materials and texts they did. It was her bet that on any given day, she was on an even par with the best of them.
It was Sarah’s mother, Ann Marie, who’d seen Maddie’s business potential and believed in her café-and-cupcake vision right from its conception. Ann Marie had gone to Austin Carlson McCreary, by far the wealthiest man in town, and asked him to be an “angel investor” in Maddie’s café. Austin, twenty-eight years old at the time and a near recluse, agreed to put up a small amount of working capital for Maddie, but only because he respected Ann Marie and her judgment.
Maddie’s café was a hit from the day the doors first opened. She worked fourteen hours a day and repaid the twenty-five thousand Austin had loaned her in less than three years. Because Austin never asked for interest or a dividend, Maddie was only too happy to fulfill his one eccentric request. Every Friday at eight in the morning, Maddie was to hand-deliver a box of seven assorted cupcakes to Austin’s front door. Maddie never missed a Friday.
After ten years in business, Maddie was about to take her first step toward her ultimate goal. She was working with Alex Perkins on franchising her café. There were hundreds of ifs between this moment and the actuality of a dozen Cupcakes and Coffee Cafés opening across the Midwest. Maddie had always believed in her dream. If she didn’t dream it, it would never happen. And she intended to make all her dreams come true.
Maddie stared at the expensive bouquet, which Alex had sent several days ago, and which she’d almost been too busy to notice, though Chloe and her girlfriends certainly had. Gazing at the spectacular flowers, she wondered why Alex would send her such an ostentatious gift. They were only business associates. She was his client, that was all. Wasn’t it?
“Are you listening to me, Maddie?” Sarah asked.
“Sorry,” Maddie said, wiping her hand on her bright red-and-white-striped apron. “Could you repeat that?”
Sarah’s eyebrow cocked inquisitively. “I said that Chicago investment firms certainly treat their clients well. That’s some pretty good PR.”
“Yeah.” Maddie smoothed her short, highlighted blond hair around her ears with her palm. “It makes me nervous,” she admitted.
“Why?”
“Is Alex sending me these flowers because he’s found an investor and he knows something I don’t, or because he can’t find anyone for my franchise? Or is it because he likes me more than he’s letting on?”
Shrugging her shoulders, Sarah asked, “Either one sounds like a winner to me. Doesn’t it to you?”
“Sure. I guess,” Maddie said. She whirled to look at the clock over the counter. “I gotta get. So do you,” she told Sarah.
“Right. I still have to run home and take Beau out for one last potty break before my big presentation for Charmaine.” She picked up two boxes of cupcakes. “I’ll put these in your car for you, Maddie. Are you taking them up to New Buffalo right away?”
“It’s first on my delivery list,” Maddie said. “You guys have been a great help to me today. I can’t thank you enough.”
“I was just teasing about the torture,” Sarah said, going to Maddie and kissing her cheek. “Keys, please.”
Maddie dug around in her jeans pocket and pulled out her car keys. “Pop the side doors in back and put the cupcakes on the driver’s side. I’ll bring out the rest of the order. Good luck with Charmaine.”
Isabelle gazed at Sarah with what looked like hero worship in her eyes. “Is it wonderful, Sarah? Your new project?”
“More than wonderful. I can’t tell you about it. Not yet, anyway. The owner wants everything kept under wraps until we get a go from the city council. But it’s exciting.”
Maddie withdrew another bakery box of cupcakes from under the counter and held them out for Sarah. “I put this together last night when Isabelle and I were working. I made Luke’s favorite lemon cake with lemon-flavored cooked icing. Dutch chocolate for Annie. Double devil’s food for Timmy. Carrot cake and cream-cheese icing for you, and of course, Beau’s cream-filled vanilla cupcake.”
Sarah smiled broadly. “This is very sweet of you.”
“Hey, you’re the generous one, giving me your time and energy when I know you probably should have been putting the final touches on your drawings.”
Sarah looked at Maddie with genuine gratitude and an air of conviction that Maddie had always admired in her friend, even when they were in high school. For a while last year, after Sarah’s mother died, that conviction, the abundant, sparkling hopefulness that Sarah shared with everyone in town, had faded under the storm of grief and loss. To lose one’s mother was always difficult, but to lose a person like Ann Marie Jensen, whose kindness was nearly legendary and whose lifelong dedication to the town had left not just a mark, but a swath of beautification, creativity and civic improvement, was almost insurmountable.
But since Sarah’s engagement to Luke Bosworth, she had come back to life, and her effervescent spirit was bubbling over with enthusiasm.
“This time my drawings are nearly perfect,” Sarah reassured
