Catherine Lanigan - Heart's Desire

“Torture is a bit strong, don’t you think, sweetie?” Maddie retorted, winking at her best friend. She yanked a very full pastry bag from a stainless-steel rack and placed a fine-point pipe on the end and secured it. The bag was filled with her new recipe for vanilla-bean whipped-buttercream filling. She stuck the pipe into the centers of several double-fudge cupcakes, which she had previously cored out, and squeezed the bag.

“It would be fine if I didn’t have to get up at 4:00 a.m.!” Sarah shouted above the latest cacophony as Isabelle Hawks dropped a stack of aluminum muffin tins on the floor.

“Sorry,” Isabelle said, whisking her dark hair away from her startlingly pretty face. She quickly gathered the muffin tins. “I’m just all thumbs today. Not enough sleep,” she said, endorsing Sarah’s comment.

“Maddie, you do know we make these sacrifices for you because we love you,” Sarah said, flashing a grin at Isabelle.

“It’s either that or you’re expecting a free cupcake out of the deal,” Maddie replied, keeping a critical eye on her work.

“I’ll take the free cupcake,” Liz Crenshaw said offhandedly as she stuck bottles of her grandfather’s new white-grape ice wine into Valentine’s baskets that already contained cupcakes and bags of Maddie’s blend of Colombian and Middle Eastern coffee beans.

Sarah tapped her cheek with her finger. “In that case, I need at least a half a dozen cupcakes. There’s Luke, Annie, Timmy, Mrs. Beabots, me and Beau, of course...”

Maddie froze and shot her best friend a horrified look. “Beau? No way your dog gets one of my gourmet creations!”

“He loves them!” Sarah grinned, keeping her eyes on Maddie’s piping bag. “Squirt a little extra cream into Beau’s cupcake. He adores that stuff.”

In mock horror, Maddie shook the piping bag at Sarah. “That dog has excellent taste. He gets a double blast.”

Sarah carefully arranged a grouping of pineapple-and-coconut cupcakes with coconut-cream frosting onto a round tray and marked it for delivery to the Pine Tree Lodges of Indian Lake. She looked quizzically at Isabelle, who had just been promoted to assistant director at the lodges. “Edgar only wants two dozen cupcakes? I would think the lodges would be booked up for months for Valentine’s dinner.”

“We are,” Isabelle answered confidently and in a somewhat smug tone. “Edgar didn’t like the idea of opening the lodges just for one night when we’re normally closed all winter. But thanks to my online winter ad campaign and the raffle for a free weekend at the lodges, even the cabins are completely booked. Truth is, I took an entire vanful of cupcakes out there last night.”

“Yeah,” Maddie said, waving her piping bag triumphantly. “We just had to make the coconut cupcakes at the last minute so they stay very fresh. I grated the coconut just an hour ago. Nothing 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?”