I took a seat in the back and smiled as the sexy waitress approached my table. Her glossy black hair was hanging free today—in large loose curls that framed her face. Her cheeks were flushed red, and she was tucking in her lips for some reason.
Does she normally blush this much?
“Welcome to Sweet Seasons,” she didn’t make eye contact. “What do you want to order tonight?”
I didn’t say anything. I wanted her to look at me.
After several seconds of silence, she slowly turned to face me and blushed again.
I smiled. “Two boxes of cherry bourbon pie and two boxes of mile high chocolate pie.”
“Okay. Give me a few minutes.”
She came back out and set four boxes on the table. Before she could ask me if I wanted extra plates and plastic knives, I blurted out, “Have we met before? I feel like I know you from somewhere.”
“You’re very funny,” she looked hurt all of a sudden. “Too bad I’ve already heard that joke a million times this week.”
“Excuse me?”
“I know you know exactly who I am. I’m on every cover of every magazine this week so don’t play stupid and don’t give me a hard time. Don’t you think I’m getting enough of that?” her voice cracked. “I’ll be back with your ticket.”
What just happened? Am I missing something?
I took out my phone and clicked on the internet app. No service.
I made a mental note to have an intern look up all the current magazine covers.
She walked back over to my table and wrote on a notepad. “Anything else for Mr. Smart-Ass before I tear this receipt out?”
So she’s clearly not easy-going…
“No. And for what it’s worth, I wasn’t trying to be smart. When you do what I do for a living, you don’t keep up with celebrities unless they play a sport.”
“And I guess you don’t go to the movies either?” she pursed her lips.
Jesus, she’s beautiful…
“Not unless you’re implying that you want to go to a movie with me. What time should I pick you up Saturday?”
“Ha! Never. Here’s your ticket. Pay at the front.”
“You sure you don’t want to go out with me?”
“Absolutely,” she blushed.
We’ll see about that…
Chapter 11
Selena
“Selena Anne Beauregard!” my mother called me from her office. “Get back here! Now!”
I rushed into the room and shut the door behind me. “If this is about that coffee pot I broke last night—”
“You broke another coffee pot?”
“No…”
“Sit down Selena,” she shook her head. “Since you were late again and missed our staff meeting this morning, I wanted to bring you up to speed. We’re about to have a rally sale…”
“What? Why do you need to do a rally sale? Isn’t that for businesses that are failing?”
She nodded. “Sweet Seasons has lost more money over the past three months than it has since we opened…Even though I own the place I’m barely breaking even. I’ve been paying everyone’s wages with my savings account, but I can’t afford to do that too much longer…I even told the staff to start looking for other jobs just in case we have to—”
“Close? You’re closing?”
“Not exactly,” she sighed. “I’m going to put up a fight, but I’ve been fighting for years and to be honest, I’m tired…I could handle Starbucks, but Autumn Wonder is something else. They’re a whole lot faster and their sweets are a whole lot cheaper. I won’t be able to compete with them forever.”
I remembered what she’d told me about Autumn Wonder a couple days ago: How they literally stole the best sweets from small bakery businesses and incorporated them into their own menus. How they deliberately underpriced the local pastry shops until they could no longer compete and were forced to shut down. How they called her on two separate occasions and offered to pay for the recipes to all her pies, with particular interest in the cherry bourbon pie.
Although she refused, they placed their own versions on their menu anyway and touted them as “the best pies in Arkansas.”
I promised her I would never give Autumn Wonder a dime of my money again; I had no idea their business model was so disgustingly cutthroat.
“I’ll help out in any way I can, mom. What do you need from me? You do know I’m rich, right? I could just give you enough money so you can stay open for as long as you want. How much do you need?”
She laughed. “That would be very sweet of you darling, but you’d pretty much be throwing money in the wind. What I need first are customers. I know you can’t be here when the news cameras come next week, but I need you to make signs for outdoors. And you’ll have to help us cook up as many sweets as possible. We need to get people to come out and remember that Sweet Seasons does baking the best.”
She and I talked for two more hours and it felt like we hadn’t missed a beat. She was completely vested in the life of her bakery and was determined to do whatever she could to save it. It was her passion in life and I couldn’t help but feel a tinge of guilt for holding that against her four years ago.
“I think I heard the bell ring, Selena. Could you go take care of that customer?”
“Okay, I’ll be right—”