Page 78 of Tart
I shook my head carefully and pushed the band back on my finger. “The band stays. Maybe when we said our vows around those rings, we thought they weren’t real, but the truth was, they were never more real. This band was blessed that night, and it will never leave my finger, no matter how many rings we add to the mix.”
He ran his thumb across my cheek to steal away the tear that had fallen there. “Those are terms I can most definitely accept, my little tart.” He slid the beautiful diamond solitaire over my finger to nestle against the band, and he sucked in a breath. “They look like they were made for each other,” he whispered, his eyes on my finger.
“Just like us,” I sighed when his lips found mine.
Epilogue
Bishop’s arms wentaround my waist, and he tucked his face into my neck, his lips kissing the tender skin there. “Happy ten years of business, my beautiful tart,” he whispered, his words almost stolen by the sounds of the partygoers around us.
“Thank you, my love,” I answered, caressing his beard with my free hand. “Thanks for being here.”
“Here is everything to you, and that makes it everything to me.”
I smiled as I gazed at the scene before me. Here was The Fluffy Cupcake, and everything was the people filling it. Taylor and Sara were serving specialty coffee drinks from the new coffee bar we’d added this fall. It was a dream I’d had since we first opened the bakery, and after I almost died doing something as simple as walking up a hill, I decided it was time to stop putting it off. For our tenth anniversary, we were opening A Tea and A Tart. We lost a lot of table space to make it happen, but no one seemed to mind standing once they got a taste of our selection of coffee and teas to complement the treats in the bakery case each day. It had been so much fun to plan, implement, and market that I hardly noticed the massive amount of pain I was in from falling down a hill and smashing my head into a dock before nearly drowning.
“You should sit down,” he said, leading me to a table, but I shook my head.
“I want to enjoy being able to stand up again,” I said, resting my hand on his chest. “It’s been so long since I’ve been without crutches.”
“Okay, but don’t overdo it. Remember, the doctor said you have to break the brace in slowly.”
“Maybe for some people, yes,” I agreed, a smile on my face as I gazed at the miracle of modern medicine that now allowed me to stand and walk with only a cane. “But some people haven’t spent seventeen years in a brace. I got this, Mr. Halla.”
He laughed that laugh I loved of his. The one that didn’t harbor pain, guilt, or unhappiness. “I’m going to go check on Athena.”
I pointed at the counter where she was chatting with Taylor and Sara. “Honestly, I think she found her tribe,” I said on a wink.
He kissed my cheek and whispered,I hope so, in my ear before he headed over to see her. Athena had found her tribe, both in Lake Pendle and The Fluffy Cupcake. She worked here baking part-time now while going to school in St. Paul. She’d graduate in the spring with her culinary degree and planned to apprentice here as the new master baker. Sam and Ken had arrived here within twelve hours of hearing about my accident. They hadn’t even met me, but Athena’s frantic voice on the phone was all they had to hear to know they were needed.
And they showed up. They were there for Athena, and they had given her their blessing to transfer to St. Paul and continue her education there. They weren’t sad she’d no longer be across the country. They often came up to visit Athena in her new apartment, which happened to be right next door to her Daddy’s house. When she decided to stay, she refused to live in the house with a bunch of newlyweds, as she put it, and I couldn’t blame her for wanting her own place. When my parents arrived back in Lake Pendle after hearing about my accident from my bestie, they had the perfect answer. My old apartment was empty, but now it’s not, and I was pleased Athena found a place to call her own. I was more pleased that Bishop had her so close to him now.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get to spend a lot of time with them in the first few weeks. If it hadn’t been for Bishop’s quick thinking, I might not have made it to the hospital alive. Even taking the cracked skull and broken ankle into account, I was lucky. His new crutches had saved both of my arms from breaking because, as soon as I went down, they fell away, allowing me to roll without my arms snapping. I shuddered. It was an awful thought, but I was so grateful he’d had the forethought to get them for me. After six weeks of healing, and another four weeks of physical therapy, I finally got the brace that would change my life. I was mobile again, active, and back working in the business I loved so much. Unfortunately, the accident required us to postpone our tenth-anniversary celebration at The Fluffy Cupcake. Haylee said as long as we did it this year, it didn’t matter that we couldn’t do it on the exact date of our opening. Instead, we ran specials and added new surprises every week since August to keep our customers coming back to celebrate with us.
“Hey, bestie,” Hay-Hay said as she approached. “You’re standing over here all by yourself, and I mean that literally and figuratively.”
My eyes creased at the corners with joy. “Pretty awesome, right? It might have cost the price of a small house, but it’s worth every penny.”
