Page 25 of Holly Jolly Cake Fight
Jannie finished with, “And Ronnie gets to be interviewed by Laurin and Candace!”
Candace picked Ronnie because everyone else was likely to pick Madison. That was it, end of story. Her questions were going tobe the same either way, and she probably wouldn’t even need the whole fifteen minutes. The fact that Laurin also picked Ronnie didn’t surprise her. Yeah, he was the worse choice, but Laurin did seem to have that uncanny ability to know how best to rankle Candace.
The trio was escorted by Jannie and a cameraman into the room Ronnie had just exited, which had a chair for him and a single love seat for Candace and Laurin. She didn’t have time to wonder if the crew instinctively knew two people would be with Ronnie or if there’d been a lot of scurrying back here after everyone had written on their boards. All thoughts were cut off by a comically oversized stopwatch Jannie was setting with fifteen minutes on it.
“Candace, as the highest scorer in the last round, you may ask the first question.”
It didn’t matter to her. In fact, the first question was probably the same, whether it came from her or Laurin. “What are your wedding colors?”
“Green and purple,” Ronnie said quickly. Proudly, as though that was a fair answer.
Candace did her best not to roll her eyes. Weddings didn’t get crayolas assigned to them. There was a whole world of green and purple out there. “What shades—?” she started to ask, but Jannie cut her off.
“One question per baker,” she said. “Sorry, but those are the rules.”
Fine. No big deal. Laurin would get that clarified for—
“Where did you meet Madison?” Laurin asked.
Dumb question. That wasn’t going to get them anywhere. Worse, Ronnie looked very sheepish about admitting, “A dating website.” But then he brightened up and said, “We went to the same college, though. Auburn. I’m sure we would have met anyway, even if we weren’t on that site.”
Laurin jotted a note down as Candace asked, “What shades of purple and green?”
Ronnie shrugged. “Just purple and green.”
“Well, but Madison must have—”
Jannie made some hemming sounds to remind Candace she couldn’t ask anything else.
“Where was your first date?”
Candace bit right down on her lip. Laurin was going to be useless. These questions were fine when time wasn’t an issue, but they couldn’t waste their questions on details like this now.
“It was kind of crazy, actually,” Ronnie said. “There was an art exhibit I wanted to go to, but I didn’t have a car and it was in Montgomery. Madison had a car, but her brother wouldn’t let her take a stranger an hour away, so we did a double date. It was solid, though. All respect for her brother, too — he’s one of my groomsmen. The exhibit was great. Madison loved it.”
“What was it?” Candace couldn’t help asking, mentally cursing herself for wasting another question. She was already stressed about this challenge, what with her track record on weddings. If she were eliminated here and never brought back, if this was her last chance at an opportunity to get the money she desperately needed to rebuild, and she blew it asking irrelevant questions, she’d never forgive herself.
Or Laurin. It wasn’t fair that she couldn’t escape him even for these few minutes. Her greatest fear was finding herself steamrolled by yet another man, but Laurin’s presence was crushing her.
“It was a traveling exhibit, on loan from the Smithsonian. A bunch of specimens from their geology department.” Ronnie’s eyes lit up as he talked about it. “My mother’s side of the family owns a chain of jewelry shops, and I grew up on my great-grandfather’s stories about mining them himself before, um, World War II, I guess. He’s passed now, but it’s always interested me.”
“Did you pick out your bride’s ring, then?” Laurin asked.
Ronnie laughed. “Heck, no! She’s wearing it, not me. I picked the setting; she picked the stone.”
“What did—?” Laurin started before catching himself and nodding to Candace to ask her question.
“What did she pick?” Candace asked, sure this was Laurin’s question but just as curious herself.
“A sapphire,” Ronnie said with a cringe.
“What’s wrong with that?” Laurin asked. “Sapphires are great.”
“They are, but they need more care, and they scratch more easily than a diamond. Thankfully, I talked her out of emeralds. They’re a lot softer.”
Laurin jotted down some notes while Candace steered the questions back on track. “Is there a theme for the wedding?”
“Winter Wonderland. But that’s just what the network told us—”
