Page 65 of Make Mine Sweet
Charlie Callahan spots me before I make it halfway across the rustic space and hurries around the front desk to greet me.
“You’re here! Obviously you’re here. This is it?” She nods at the cardboard box in my arms I constructed to fit the wedding cake. “Clearly it is. Ignore me. Let me show you into the reception room.”
She’s just a touch excited.
I follow her through the lodge to a beautiful room with plain log walls and simple white chairs and tables. The huge windows beneath the A-frame ceiling make extra decor unnecessary. The lodge sits secluded in the forest just outside Sunshine, and the windows reveal lush green pines and the river skirting by close enough to skip a rock in it. I can’t imagine what else this room is used for, but an intimate wedding sounds just about perfect.
Charlie shows me the table where I can set up the cake. I take apart the box and stabilizing supports and place the wedding cake on a wooden stand in the center of the table. Inspecting every centimeter of the cake, I make sure nothing’s amiss after transit. I’m meticulous with my deliveries, and I always triple check.
My phone is already loaded with pictures of this cake, but I take a few more of it in this gorgeous room, too. The couple chose a two-tier lavender cake filled with lemon curd and cream. I decorated it in buttercream tinted the bride’s favorite shade of teal—she actually texted me the Pantone color swatch—with white mountains and green pine trees iced on with a palette knife.
Incidentally, I had Hope teach me how to paint mountains when I started experimenting with this decoration style last fall. I’m not much of an artist, but I can make a pretty good mountain out of buttercream now.
The cake is simple but elegant, perfect for this space. And hopefully, perfect for the couple.
“It’s gorgeous.” Charlie sighs over it. “I knew it would be, but seeing it…oh, it’s lovely.”
With praise like this, I might never have to go therapy again.
“Do you ever think about doing cakes full time?” she asks.
Her straightforward question pulls at something in my chest.Every day.
“Maybe someday.”
The happy couple arrives a few minutes later to give their approval. People are usually excited to receive my cakes, but I’ve never had a man tear up over one. His bride-to-be cries, too, and they hover over their wedding cake like neither of them can contain their joy, hugging and kissing. It’s one of the sweetest things I’ve ever seen.
I almost let myself miss out on this?
After they transfer me the other half of the cost I’d quoted, they leave to finish getting ready for their impromptu ceremony. Charlie leads me back through the lobby, grinning her face off.
“I’m working on convincing Mom and Dad to let me convert the barn into a wedding venue,” she tells me as we walk past cozy leather sofas and a drinks cart offering hot cocoa. “It’s our rec room space right now, so it will take a lot of work to spruce it up enough for weddings instead of just foosball bouts and table tennis. I’d love to have it ready by the new year, but they’re not sure about the investment.”
She scrunches her nose as though this attitude is ridiculous. I understand her sentiment a little too well. “So hopefully this first wedding is a major success and will convince them to expand. If not, you’ll never hear me speak of it again.”
“I can’t imagine this place not getting booked up for weddings all year round.”
We step outside into the warm June sunshine. I don’t often come out here, but I can’t get over how beautiful it is, both the scenery and the cabins. Charlie’s transformed the lodge from a homey bed and breakfast into an upscale resort in just a few years.
“That’s the dream. I’ve researched weddings in this area until my eyes went dry, and I think I’ve got a realistic business plan. It’s just the last little hump I need to get past.”
“It’s hard to know what’s going to be worth it in the end.” I’m not sure why I’m echoing her parents’ hesitation when I’m trying to convince my own business partner to expand our offerings. “You’ve had a lot of success so far. You don’t worry about…hitting a wall?”
That’s been Mom’s concern. We’ll reach some invisible barrier that triggers disaster, and the bakery will go up in flames.
Charlie makes a face. “The only wall is my dad’s hard head. They don’t always share my visions for this place. But I love building it out and turning it into a bigger name than my grandparents ever imagined it could be when they started it.”
She looks around as if she’s seeing past the parking lot and into the future where their family’s business is even more successful. Knowing her, she’ll bring her parents around. Pretty sure the couple getting married this afternoon is already writing up their five-star reviews.
“It must be hard not having Shepherd involved.” I can’t imagine carrying on our bakery if Wren were to leave. More accurately, I can’t imagine Mom would react favorably to either of us abandoning ship.
Again. The last time I left the business, all her doom and gloom predictions turned out to be right.
Charlie scoffs. “Are you kidding me? Shep would just naysay everything. He’s good where he is.”
“Your parents don’t mind that he went his own direction?”
“They’re the ones who told him to quit. They knew he wasn’t happy working here. And when we started all the upgrades—oof. Can you imagine Shepherd being involved in anything with the word ‘luxury’ attached?” She laughs as if she can see his sour face. “So no, they don’t mind. And he’s deliriously happy where he is.”
