Sweet Trilogy. Susan Mallery
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a button on the conveyor belt so it started moving again.
Chocolate-covered doughnuts inched toward her.
“Sprinkle,” Phil said.
She hated that she wasn’t dressed right and found his disapproving attention unnerving. Worse, when she upended the shaker over the first doughnut, about a pound of sprinkles tumbled out.
“Just great,” he muttered.
“I’ll get it,” she said, trying not to sound defensive.
“It’s sprinkles. There shouldn’t be a learning curve.” With that, he left.
Claire quickly learned the right angle for the shaker and began to cover all the doughnuts evenly. Chocolate iced changed to white iced and she kept sprinkling. When her right arm got tired, she switched to her left, then back.
Thirty minutes later, both her arms burned and trembled, but she didn’t stop until Phil reappeared and switched off the conveyor belt.
“Muffins on trays,” he said by way of explanation and started walking.
She put down the sprinkler shaker and followed him.
They stopped in front of racks and racks of huge, warm, steaming muffins. Her mouth began to water.
Phil pointed from the muffins to big empty trays that would fit in the display case. “Keep the same kind on the same tray. Fill the trays. Got that?”
She nodded and went to work.
After muffin duty, she dumped dozens and dozens of bagels into bins. At six-thirty, she ducked out of the bakery and drove back to the house. She made coffee, then carried it upstairs with two fresh muffins.
Nicole was still asleep. Claire crept into the room, put everything on her nightstand, then tiptoed out. She was back at the bakery by seven-fifteen and put to work shoving loaves of bread into plastic bags.
NICOLE WOKE and rolled over. It took her a second to realize the smell of coffee wasn’t just her imagination, and that next to the carafe was a plate with fresh muffins. Muffins that could only have come from the bakery.
It was barely seven-thirty, which meant Claire had gotten up early, driven to the bakery, picked up the muffins and driven back. Perhaps not a big deal for anyone else, but for the piano princess? Actual work?
Nicole sat up slowly, holding in a groan as the movement pulled at her incision. She ached, which was how she started each day lately. She knew she was healing, but the process was a whole lot longer than she wanted it to be. There were—
Memories from the previous night crashed in on her. The fight with Claire, what she, Nicole, had yelled at her, Drew showing up, Claire attacking him.
Her sister had been possessed, leaping on his back and swinging that high heel like a knife. She’d managed to wrestle Drew to the ground, which was damned impressive. Claire had protected her, even after everything that had been said.
Nicole reached for the carafe and poured herself a cup of coffee, then sipped the hot liquid.
Claire was like one of those puppies that just kept coming after you, no matter how many times you told it to go away. Except Claire wasn’t a puppy and Nicole hadn’t told her to go away—she’d told her she wished she were dead.
“A pretty horrible thing to say,” she murmured to herself. Worse, she’d meant it at the time. Not yesterday, but twelve years ago, when their mother had died, she’d really wanted Claire to take her place.
It shouldn’t have been like that, she thought sadly. It should have been different. She and Claire had been so close when they were little. Like most twins, they knew what the other one was thinking. They’d been there for each other. Then one day Claire left and Nicole had felt as though someone had cut off her arm.
She’d spent weeks crying, wandering from room to room thinking that maybe if she kept looking hard enough, she would find her sister. But Claire had been really gone—probably lapping up her new princess life, she thought bitterly.
Familiar anger filled her—resentment for all Claire had experienced, annoyance that she, Nicole, cared. Genuine rage for being stuck behind to take care of everything.
Then she sipped the coffee again, coffee Claire had made and brought. Okay, maybe it wasn’t the beginning of world peace, but Claire was making an effort. She could have left the first time Nicole told her to. But she hadn’t. She’d hung in and kept trying.
With anyone else, she would have assumed that had to mean something. But with Claire… Nicole couldn’t figure out if all this was a game or not. But maybe, just maybe, it was time to stop assuming the worst.
Shortly after noon, Claire climbed the stairs. She knocked on Nicole’s open door, then stepped in.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
“A little better.”
“Good.”
“Thanks for bringing me the coffee and the muffins. They were good.”
Claire beamed. “You’re welcome. I was happy to do it.”
About a thousand sarcastic comments exploded in Nicole’s brain. They were coming so fast, she would have trouble picking one. She remembered what had happened yesterday, what she’d said and what Claire had done and vowed to try not to be such a bitch.
“You got up early.”
Claire eased into the chair by the bed. “I was at the bakery at four-thirty. Sid nearly had a heart attack. I promised I wouldn’t screw up. I told him I just wanted to help. He didn’t believe me at first, but then he put me to work. I did the sprinkles and sorted bagels and that kind of stuff.”
Idiot work, Nicole thought. Where the new kid always started. “Kid” being the key word.
“Why would you do that?” she asked. “Get up that early, go down there and do the crappy jobs?”
Claire frowned. “Because this is a family business and you can’t go there yourself. I know I can’t fill in for you specifically, but I can free up someone else to do what’s important.”
The words made sense, but in this context they were way confusing. “You’re a famous concert pianist. You probably make millions a year. Why do you care about the bakery?”
Claire stared at her as if she wasn’t all that bright. “You’re my sister. Of course I care.”
After everything that had happened. After all that had been said. For the first time in a long time… maybe ever… Nicole felt very, very small.
“Look, I—” She pressed her lips together. Apologizing wasn’t her best skill. “About last night. What I said.” She sighed. “I’m sorry.”
Claire nodded. “I know. I’m sure I’d say the same thing in your position.”
Somehow Nicole doubted that.
“It’s okay,” Claire added.
Nicole didn’t believe that, either. But she’d apologized and now she would try to be nicer.
“The bakery is really interesting,” Claire said. “Everything happens so fast. All those products. Sid made me stay away from the chocolate cake, but I saw a few of them coming out of the oven.”
“The famous Keyes Chocolate cake,” Nicole grumbled. “It’s a moneymaker.”
The recipe had been a family secret for generations, and a local Seattle favorite. In the 1980s, a local politician looking to make a good impression had delivered one to President Reagan. It had been served at a White House dinner where the president had declared it better than jelly beans.
Three years ago, Nicole had received a call from one of Oprah’s producers, saying the cake would be featured on the show. Nicole had hired a company to handle the influx