Authors: Darlene Panzera

The Cupcake Diaries (11 page)

BOOK: The Cupcake Diaries

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“We’re going to have to deviate from the plan,” Stacey said and looked at Dave. “Do you have any of your marionberry ice cream still in the freezer of your truck?”

Dave nodded and went out the side door of the shop to get the container. Their cupcake-and-ice cream special had been popular enough on the beach, so why not try it out on the judges? At this point, what did they have to lose?

“See how great we are together?” Dave asked as she cored out the cupcake and he placed a scoop of ice cream inside.

“I think whipped cream and berries would be great together instead of vanilla frosting,” she said, concentrating on the recipe.

“A
natural
choice,” he agreed. “Just like it’s natural for two people who—”

When she picked up the tray and went out to deliver the cupcakes, Dave came with her.

“C
HOCOLATE
M
ARIONBERRY CUPCAKES
with a marionberry ice cream insert, topped with whipped cream frosting and a fresh marionberry garnish.”

The judges scribbled on their paddles and raised them high in the air. Ten, nine, eight. Really? Why was Saggy Lady’s score always lower than the other two? Did she even taste the cupcake? From her vacant expression, one would never know.

At least Goatee Man was on their side. His last three scores had all been a ten, possibly because all the sugar was putting him in a good mood.

“What was that all about?” Andi demanded, coming into the kitchen with baby Jacob over her shoulder as she gently patted his back. “That wasn’t one of the recipes on the list.”

Stacey took the bowl of frosting for the final cupcake and stirred it with a spoon. “No, due to unforeseen circumstances, we had to make some last-minute changes.”

“Unforeseen circumstances?” Andi repeated with disbelief. “
What kind
of unforeseen circumstances?”

Suddenly, the baby spit up milk all over Andi’s shoulder . . . and straight into Stacey’s bowl.

“Oh!”
Andi exclaimed, her eyes wide as she realized what baby Jacob had done.

Stacey pushed the bowl aside, and she and Andi looked at each other for a long moment.

“
That kind
of unforeseen circumstance,” Stacey said, quietly.

“This is a
disaster!
” Andi shouted and walked back out of the kitchen.

Stacey wiped her hands on a dish towel and threw it down on the table.

“You can’t give up,” Dave said, his voice filled with encouragement. “One of the things I love about you is that you never give up.”

Stacey stared at him. One of the things he loved about her? Did that mean there were more? Wait! Did he say
love
?

“Gladys, any ideas?” Stacey asked, dumping the sour-smelling frosting into the trash.

“Something with peanut butter,” the old woman said. “Judge number three always had a penchant for peanut butter when we worked together at the bakery.”

Stacey’s gaze fell on her backpack. “Peanut butter, huh?”

She retrieved the last MRE, ripped open the box, and slit the foil pouch. After mixing the contents with a jar of marshmallow fluff, she swirled the creamy peanut butter mixture over the last three cupcakes.

“I thought you said the MREs tasted horrible,” Dave reminded her, his voice sounding slightly panicked. “You said they were only good if you needed to survive.”

She nodded. “Right now I’m trying to survive this competition.”

Dave, Theresa, Heather, and Eric all followed her out the door of the kitchen as she marched the final cupcakes to the judges’ table. Gladys hung back to peek out between the double doors.

“Vanilla Buttermilk cupcakes frosted with Peanut Butter Surprise,” Stacey said, her voice strong and firm.

The crowd remained silent as the three judges each took a bite. Then instead of scribbling a number on their paddles, Goatee Guy, Skeletor, and Saggy Woman each looked at each other, nodded, got up from their seats, and went out the door.

“Was it
that
bad?” Stacey asked, more to herself than anyone else. “They didn’t even give it a score.”

Rachel and Kim both ran through the door, followed by their husbands.

“I came right from the airport,” Kim said, her voice breathless. “What happened?”

Stacey frowned. “I served the last cupcake and . . . the judges left.”

“We didn’t win?” Rachel cried.

“The baby spit into the frosting,” Andi said, as she stepped up to join them. “What a mess!”

Then the murmurs from the crowd rose and mixed with Andi’s, Rachel’s, and Kim’s anxiety-ridden squeals of distress. Dave’s voice, along with Theresa’s, Heather’s, and Eric’s, joined in, and the sound spun round and round the room, like the loud, fearsome whirring noise of a tornado before it strikes.

Stacey put her hands over her ears and shouted, “
Stop!
All we can do is our best, right? But if my best isn’t good enough, then I guess I’ll have to find another job.”

Andi gasped and handed the baby off to Jake. “Stacey, you can’t leave. Jake estimated you would only sell a quarter of what you did. Now, because of your fantastic sales on the beach this summer, we have enough money to buy the equipment we wanted for the new store.”

“New store?” Stacey repeated.

“Yes!” Rachel chimed in. “We’ve decided to open a second shop in Seaside, just ten minutes from Cannon Beach, and who’s better to help manage it than you?”

Stacey gasped.
“Me? Manage a store?”

Andi nodded. “Even if we didn’t win, you showed great leadership skills tonight. When you ran into trouble, you faced it head on and came up with solutions.”

Stacey laughed. “I better restock my backpack.”

“One more thing,” Kim added. “Dave wants to know if he can run the new shop with you.”

Dave looked at her, and Stacey met his gaze and smiled. “Well, we
are
a team.”

“Oh, Stacey, what a great opportunity,” Trish said, coming up behind her. “I’m so jealous. I wish I could be a part of it.”

Stacey glimpsed the longing in her eyes, the same longing
she
had felt when she’d been the outsider looking in.

“Can she?” Stacey asked, glancing at the others.

Andi, Rachel, and Kim all bobbed their heads in unison.

“We’d
love
for you to be a part of it, Trish,” Andi said, giving her sister-in-law a hug. Then she crooked her finger toward the double doors of the kitchen. “You, too, Gladys. Didn’t Stacey say you worked in a bakery?”

The woman’s face beamed as she clasped her hands together, scurried forward, and joined their growing circle.

There was a disturbance by the entryway as people moved aside to allow the door to swing open.

“They’re back!” Mia called out. “The judges are back!”

Chapter Ten

If you want to know how much I love you, count the waves.

—Author unknown

T
HE JUDGES SAT
down at the table, scribbled in their notepads, and then proceeded to write on their scoring paddles.

“Please excuse the delay,” the large man with the goatee announced. “As the last round was unanimous, we decided to take a break before we announced the results of the state cupcake competition.”

“Wait a minute,” Rachel said, waving her hands for the crowd to hush. “You said the last round was unanimous, but you didn’t hold up the score.”

“No, we didn’t,” the thin, bony woman affirmed. “We were afraid it would give away the winner of the contest.”

“What does that mean?” Stacey whispered.

Andi shook her head. “I have no idea how the other shops scored. I wouldn’t know if we won no matter what scores they held up.”

Jake handed the baby back to her and took out several newspaper clippings. “The only way we’re going to win is if we get a total score of—”

Before he could finish, the goatee judge held up a ten.

Beside him, the skinny woman held up a ten.

And on the other side of her, the older woman’s expression changed, brought to life with a smile as she, too, held up a ten. “The winner of this year’s state cupcake competition is . . . Creative Cupcakes.”

Rachel gasped. “We won?”

Kim clapped her hands. “You know what this means, don’t you?”

Andi nodded. “We’re going to regionals.”

Stacey laughed as the three women handed her the blue first-place ribbon. “I’ll hang this up in the new cupcake shop.”

“We also want you to have the thousand dollar prize money,” Rachel told her.

Stacey stared at the cashier’s check they placed in her hands. “Are you sure?”

“You might need it to pay off your debt,” Kim said and motioned to the letter in Sarah’s hands.

Stacey’s aunt stepped forward, hugged her, and handed her the envelope with the Idaho postmark stamped on the front. “This came in the mail, and I opened it by accident. I thought you’d want to see it right away.”

Actually, a letter from Pam was the
last
thing she wanted to see at this moment. Why spoil her happy mood? But Sarah appeared insistent.

She unfolded the paper, expecting Pam to demand to know when she’d send the rest of the money she owed. Would first thing in the morning be soon enough?

Instead, the words on the page read:

Thanks for the first half of the money. You don’t need to send the rest. You were right. You never owed me anything. I invited you in and then sent that horrible bill and . . . I just hate myself right now. My ex-boyfriend tried to collect some past debts from me, and I turned around and did the same to you. What you said on the phone made me realize I was wrong. I’m sorry. I didn’t know how else to get the money. I’ll pay you back as soon as I can.

Stacey shook her head. There was only one thing she wanted. Then she felt the solid lump at the bottom of the envelope and held her breath as she reached her hand in to retrieve what she hoped was a piece of jewelry.
Yes! Pam had returned her locket!

Stacey opened the clasped heart, and a torrent of forgotten memories flooded over her when she looked at the tiny photo of her grandmother. It reminded her of the importance of family.

Now that she didn’t have to pay Pam, she could use the money she’d saved from her forty percent commission for the security deposit on her new apartment. And she could use the prize money to fly her parents and older brother out to visit. Maybe they could reconnect, laugh together like old times, take a new family photo.

After Dave helped fasten the locket’s gold chain around her neck, he took her in his arms.

“It’s been quite a night, hasn’t it?” he asked.

She nodded. “I hope there’s enough room to write it all down in the Cupcake Diary.”

“You could always start a new book,” he teased.

“Only if you’re in it,” she said, and gazed up at him and smiled.

“Well, that depends,” he said, releasing her and stepping back.

She didn’t want him to release her. She wanted to stay in his arms forever. “Depends on what?”

“On how much you trust me,” he said, his face turning serious. “When we first met, I tried to stay away. I thought I needed to focus on my business, and you . . . well, you were a distraction.”

She frowned, not sure what he meant.

“In a good way,” he clarified. “I liked you too much.”

“Liked?”

“More than liked,” he corrected.

She narrowed her gaze. “How much more?”

He grinned. “Enough to want to kiss you day and night for the rest of my life.”

She drew in her breath as he got down on one knee. Was he doing what she thought he was doing? She wasn’t reading more into this than she should, was she? He wasn’t going to stand up again and show her he’d found a penny on the floor or anything like that, right?

But then she saw him draw a small black velvet box out of his pocket and heard everyone around them draw in their breath, too. And she knew it wasn’t her imagination. This was real.

“Stace—I love you. I want to marry you. This is the reason I went to Portland last night.”

She stared at the large glittering diamond with its entrancing one-of-a-kind multidiamond setting as he took it from the box and placed it on her finger.

“I-I love you, too, Dave,” she whispered, and the corners of her eyes filled with tears—tears of happiness for what
this
piece of jewelry would symbolize.

“I know you’ve been through a lot,” Dave said, giving her a direct look, “and it’s made you cautious. We both know the future is never certain. But I hope you’ll decide to make your home with me, so that no matter what life throws at us, we can face it
together
.”

“You and me,” she said, taking his hand as he stood back up. “I’d like that. I’d like that very much.”

“Is that a yes?”

Stacey nodded. “Yes, of course! A
million
times yes!”

Dave grinned, pulled her against him, and lowered his mouth for a kiss. His lips were warm, soft, and promised so much more to come that her head swam round and round, but in a good way, a very good way. And she left all her fears behind as she kissed him back, her imagination already two steps ahead of her, picturing a very, very happy future.

The crowd around them clapped, and when Stacey and Dave drew their heads apart, she spotted Mia, Taylor, and Max standing on top of the table beside them, each holding up one of the judge’s paddles. Then she looked at Dave, he looked at her, and they both laughed.

They’d received a perfect score.

Recipe for

VALENAS LEMON−MINT BLUEBERRY CUPCAKES

from Heather Fizer of Valenas Custom Cakery in Manchester, Washington

www.facebook.com/ValenasCustomCakery

Cupcake Ingredients: