Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 102731 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 514(@200wpm)___ 411(@250wpm)___ 342(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102731 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 514(@200wpm)___ 411(@250wpm)___ 342(@300wpm)
And yet, I was still nervous to make the pastries I wanted to sell in Callie’s Wee Cakery. My mother named her bakery after me, not knowing that I’d grow up to want to follow in her footsteps. I loved every hour I’d spent here as a child, baking with Mum. Some of my fondest memories, both while we were in LA and here in Scotland, include the days spent in the kitchen with her.
By the time I was fifteen, I’d known with certainty that I wanted to stay in Ardnoch and help Mum run the bakery. That never changed. But after a few years in the village doing just that, I’d yearned to learn more than what Mum could teach me. She understood that. So I applied to the school in Paris because I was lucky enough to have a parent who not only believed in me but could afford the fees.
I missed my family. I missed Scotland. But I was glad I left the Highlands to experience a bit of the world, to earn my degree, and to learn through missing it that our wee village was exactly where I wanted to be.
However, every time I talked about coming home and bringing all I’d learned back with me, my mum either got quiet or changed the subject. I’d begun to wonder if she didn’t want me working at the bakery and taking it over one day.
She’d been strange with me ever since I returned home a few days ago. I’d begun to worry that maybe I assumed too much when I announced all those years ago that I wanted to work with her. And now that I was back, she didn’t want me back. While I was gone, she trained a young lad called Phil from Golspie, and he was now her assistant baker. I tried not to get nervous or jealous about that. But now I had to wonder … maybe she didn’t need me anymore.
“These look too beautiful to eat, Callie.” Mum stared at the pastries in awe. “Ardnoch won’t know what’s hit them. But are you sure you have time to bake such complicated pastries for the store? Are you sure we can charge what we need to charge to cover the cost of the ingredients?”
I nodded. I’d worked all of that out already when coming up with my creations.
I’d taken classic French pastries such as the Saint Honoré and modified them, made them smaller. They were somewhere between the size of an entremets and a petit four. My specialty was choux pastry. Two of my teachers had claimed I had the best choux in my year.
Mum finally cut her fork into the dessert. It was six profiteroles filled with salted caramel diplomat cream, glazed in chocolate hazelnut, with diplomat cream piped between them in the shape of a star. A seventh glazed profiterole topped the star. I watched in glee as Mum’s eyes rolled with pleasure.
“Ohmagawd …” The mouthful muffled her words.
“You like?” I beamed in delight. There was nothing that brought me more joy than when someone enjoyed my desserts. Especially Mum, because she was such a fantastic baker.
However, Mum finished chewing and got worryingly quiet.
“Mum?”
Her eyes flew to mine. And I saw guilt there. “You should be a pastry chef in one of the finest restaurants in Paris. Not here in Ardnoch.”
Understanding dawned, and with it a humongous wave of relief. “Oh, Mum …” I rounded the large island in the bakery’s kitchen. “Is that why you’ve been weird since I got home?”
She chewed her lower lip. “I don’t mean to be. But I’m so worried that you’ve left behind everything in Paris because you feel obligated to be here.”
Hearing the emphasis on everything, I winced before drawing her into a tight hug. We were the same height—five seven—and since my return home, I’d been mistaken for Mum several times by villagers. As I’d gotten older, we’d only grown more alike. When I posted photos on socials of the two of us, I got so many comments from friends about how young Mum looked and how similar we were. I considered it a huge compliment.
She hugged me so hard it was almost painful.
I squeezed her back. “I’m home because I want to be home.”
When Mum released me, I looked deep into her eyes. “Home is where you are, where Dad is, where Harry is. And I’m grateful that Ardnoch is where you are because it’s home to me. It has been since we arrived fifteen years ago. Paris was a wonderful experience, and I’m so glad I did it. But I don’t regret leaving it behind. Any of it. Including Gabriel.”
She searched my eyes for the truth. “You didn’t love him, then?”
I shook my head. I’d met Gabriel through a classmate. He’d been a sexy, charming, hardworking police officer. He worked in a tough arrondissement in the north of the city. Out of the nine months we’d been dating, I’d say we’d spent the equivalent of four of them together. He was exactly what I’d needed after Remy, my first boyfriend in Paris. Remy was a fellow student and arrogantly confident in a way that was sexy at first. But he’d needed to feel superior to me, and when I started excelling in class, moving past him, he resorted to insults and belittling comments, so I kicked him to the curb.