“Well, why don’t you work here?”
“In River Gorge? I’m not sure it could support a bakery start-up by someone who isn’t from here. Even with Ripley’s connections, I think that would be a hard sell.”
“No, I mean here.” He gestured around the kitchen. “We could work out some kind of partnership. I’m going to be honest with you, revenue has been down since my ex left. People like fresh pastries and muffins with their coffee. I hate to admit it, because I’m better off without him, but it has hurt my bottom line. You could try working here for me for say, three months, and at the end of the three months, if you think you can make a go of it, you can officially open your own bakery operating out of the coffee shop. It could be a win for both of us.”
I looked around the kitchen—that was a pastry chef’s dream—and without giving myself time to overthink it said, “I think that’s a great idea. Let’s do it. I’ll need to take a few days to go get my stuff and find a place to live. Ripley says I’m welcome at the ranch, and there is plenty of room, but I need my own space.”
“I bet Miller can help with that. We don’t have apartments or anything here, but there are always empty houses.”
“I’ve only ever lived in an apartment. I’ve never even had a yard. That could be fun. It would be better to be in town, anyway, because I’ll need to be here early each morning to get started with everything. I would need to have the morning stuff done by the time the shop opens.”
“So you’ll need to be early every day?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Could you open the shop for the first couple of hours, or would that interfere with your baking?”
“No, it wouldn’t. Like I said, I would need to have the first morning rush food already made. But I have to be honest, I don’t know how to make coffee. I don’t drink the stuff.”
“You don’t drink coffee? At all?”
“Nope, I’m a hot tea guy all the way. But if you teach me how, I can do it. Are you wanting to come in later?”
“Just an hour or so. Right now, I have a neighbor taking Annie to preschool, but I would love to be able to do it. We don’t really get busy until after the time I drop her off. Most of our morning business comes in right before the businesses open, and that’s about thirty minutes after school drop-off. We do have some regulars who work in the city who stop here for coffee on their way out of town, so I open for them. You wouldn’t be crazy busy, but you would have to set everything up to be ready for the rush. I won’t have time when I get here.”
“We can do that. This could actually work,” I said. And it really could. It would give me time to test the market and see if I could build up a client base here before investing in a business, because whether it was here or somewhere else, that’s what I was doing. After the experience I had with Chef Mercer, I’d decided I wasn’t going back to work for anyone else. I was opening my own place.
“Great, I’ve left Stacy by herself long enough, and you have cake balls to decorate, so I’ll let you get to it.”
He left the kitchen to go back up front, and I watched him as he left. That was one massive man, with one fine ass. Who was about to be my boss, or my business partner, both of which meant no touching. But looking couldn’t hurt.
I grabbed the cake balls and got busy. I put a little frosting down on the heart base I was using for the feet and then plopped the balls down. Once they were all lined up like little cake ball soldiers, I went to work putting the hair on. I used a piping tip that made something that looked like grass or hair. I used it a lot when doing character cakes. These little fuzzies looked like they took a lot of time, but they really went fast. It took almost no time at all to pipe it on. Then when that was done, I put little white frosting eyes, and then came back and did black dots in the middle of each one. Doing the eyes took twice as long as doing the hair, and I would never do them that way again. The ones I’d done for the birthday party were so much easier with the candy eyes. Next I put the little antennae I’d prepared earlier on, and they were done. I carefully transferred them over to the two boxes, and then let Cap know they were ready.
He opened up one of the boxes, then pulled me into a hug. “These are so amazing. Annie is going to be so thrilled. I can’t wait for the kids to see them.”
“I’m glad you like them. I’m going to get everything all cleaned up in here, and then have Ripley come get me.”
“Why don’t you wait here? Annie’s going to want to meet the guy who made these, and we can run you home. I’ve been wanting to take her out to see the goats, anyway.”
“Okay, sounds good.” He left to go deliver the love bugs, and I started cleaning everything up. I was almost done when a young woman, probably early twenties, popped her head in.
“Hey, I’m Stacy. Cap said you were going to be working here.”
“I am,” I confirmed.
“Good. As glad as I was to see Mr. Prissy pants go”—she rolled her eyes—”business has been slower since we haven’t had food to serve. Oops, got a customer.” She popped back out just as quickly as she had popped in. Mr. Prissy pants, huh? I knew Ripley hadn’t spoken highly of him, but I wondered what Cap was doing with a guy like that in the first place. Oh, well, Mr. Prissy pants’ loss was my gain ‘cause this was one sweet-ass kitchen.
Chapter 3
Cap
I carefully carried the boxes full of cake balls to the car and headed for the school. These things were amazing. Seriously amazing, and the way Frankie whipped them up like it was no big deal... I shook my head. It was crazy. He was going to be such a great addition to the shop. I had no doubt people were going to come in just to see his creations. If he did any more cakes like the ones he'd shown me pictures of, he wouldn’t have any problem running a shop. I bet he could even pull business from the city. It wasn’t that far, and he could always get a delivery van.
I pulled into the school parking lot and checked my time. The party was supposed to be at 2:00 p.m. and it was 1:45 p.m. I went in, stopping at the front office to sign in. This was the same elementary school I went to, and the same woman still sat behind the counter. Of course, when I went to school here, they didn’t have preschool. This was a special program through a grant for rural communities. I was happy that my mom was able to get Annie enrolled; it was a life saver. “Hello, Ms. Betty,” I said.
“Hello there, Devin. How are things?”
“Wonderful. Just bringing treats for Annie’s party.”
“Oh, did you make them yourself? I see they’re in a Cap’s Coffee box.”
“I didn’t. There’s a new person starting at the shop and he made them. Want to see?”
“Sure,” she said coming around the counter to look. I opened one of the boxes so she could see.
“Oh my gracious, those are adorable. And the person who made them is going to be working in your coffee shop?”
“At first. If he can get enough business, he’s going to partner with me and turn it into a full-fledged bakery. He does wedding cakes and birthday cakes, too.”