Baker’s Dozen
Kali Brixton
Synopsis - Baker’s Dozen
Scott Baker has nearly mastered the fine art of juggling a struggling small business and single parenthood. But as luck would have it, while he's creating new treats for his own shop, fate may be whipping up a recipe for new love and second chances.
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Staying with her young-at-heart great aunt promises Nova Whitmore an adventure, but a curveball in the form of a local coffeehouse owner and his brood of kids may prove to be the greatest one yet. As new girl Nova and widower Scott soon learn, the Columbian drip isn’t the only thing brewing hot around there.
* * *
Sparks fly as laughter and lessons are doled out by the dozen, making Scott wonder if the missing ingredient to a happy family lies within a pixie who has a little magic hidden in her apron strings.
copyright @ 2020 by Kali Brixton
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission except in the case of brief quotations included in critical articles and reviews.
For information, please contact the author.
This a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
1
Scott
“Daddy?” A soft, sweet voice and a slight tug on an apron that’s seen its better days draw me from the escape of my mid-afternoon espresso pick-me-up. Halle’s bright eyes, round with curiosity, stare at me.
“What is it, honey?” I chase down the question with my last drops of much-needed energy.
This could be really good or really—“What’s a dil-do?”
The large sip of espresso I had just taken half-spews on the back counter, half-trickles down my throat from my quick inhale of surprise. Placing my coffee cup onto the counter as I continue to choke, I hunt for towels and the seconds that just passed by before my daughter uttered the word dildo. Where the hell did my eight-year-old hear that? I glance around the nearly empty coffeehouse and locate the culprit.
Haberdasher.
Or more accurately, her open laptop sitting innocently and unguarded at her usual table, as she is probably on her fifth bathroom break of the day.
I sputter between trying to catch a breath and regretting it more after each inhale sends dry air over my already scalded throat. Searching for relief, I grab a bottle of water from the small fridge under the counter and take a big drink, trying to buy a moment and to soothe the burning in my throat. My daughter stands there patiently, wide-eyed and ready for an answer. She is the sponge of the Baker clan, after all.
“Halle,” I form my words carefully, as to deflect an incredibly uncomfortable conversation for at least another eternity, a conversation I never want to have with any of my daughters. Ever. “What have I told you about reading Mrs. Haberdasher’s…private thoughts?”
“I didn’t mean to look,” she pouts as her head bows sheepishly. “I just saw it when I left her biscotti on the table.”
I can’t fault the cookie fiend for having her three-a-day fix, but I’d rather Halle not be exposed to things she doesn’t need to know about until later in life.
Preferably after I’m dead and gone.
Millie Haberdasher’s a little ol’ grandma in her seventies who looks like her idea of a rousing Saturday night is knitting her “granddog” Leonard another sweater. Millie Haberdasher is also a wild storyteller who loves to read those paperback novels with half-naked men on them, typically a pirate or a Scotsman. The same type of paperbacks that she has recently taken to writing about said swashbuckling bandits and kilt-wearing warriors herself.
Let the record show I only know this because when she celebrated her 68th birthday a couple of years ago, she decided her final act in life would be writing “bloomer-burners,” as she put it. It was way more information than I needed, especially when I only asked, “Did you have a good birthday, Miss Millie?”
I’m never asking that question again.
However, I don’t know why Halie saw that word if her story takes place on a 17th-century pirate ship or in the Scottish Highlands. “I think Mrs. Haberdasher may have made a typo.” Yeah, a typo. Quick thinking, Baker. Even pushing forty, you haven’t lost your touch.
I can still see the wheels turning in her mind. Not good. “How are you supposed to spell dildo?”
Crap on a cracker. “I think Miss Millie meant to say a dodo,” my voice drops to a low whisper as I reply in hopes that she’ll get the hint that she can’t say that word out loud.
“What’s a dodo?” she whispers hoarsely and a bit too loudly.
I believe we’re going to need some lessons in whispering in addition to why we aren’t supposed to snoop. “A type of prehistoric bird.”
She thinks about my answer for a moment. “Does she always write about birds?”
In a manner of speaking. “I don’t know, honey. We aren’t supposed to spy on people’s writing, remember?” An arched eyebrow punctuates my point.
Her blonde head shakes furiously as she nods in agreement. Please God, let this be the last time I have to talk about dildos. Amen. I turn to get her afternoon snack—always an apple—only to feel another tug at my apron. “Should we tell her she made a mistake?”
“No!” I utter loudly, drawing the attention of the two other patrons in the room. My knee touches the nearly spotless wooden floor as I squat down to get on my daughter’s level and lower my voice once more. “No, she likes to find them herself. We don’t want to take away her fun, do we?” The jingling of the doorbell signals a newcomer as that very welcome distraction comes into view. “Look who it is, Halle? Miss Vera Kay just got here.”
Vera Kay happens to be my landlord at Baked & Brewed, but the way she’s been here for us the past three years has solidified her as an honorary Baker. Tragedy is no stranger to our family or hers, yet it’s the reason we’ve created this new unit of love.
My wife’s death three Augusts ago left us all adrift at sea without a rudder. Emma was the cement that held us all together, while I’m little more than a cheap glue stick, doing my best to make this web of impossibility hold firm. After she passed, I struggled with juggling a huge family's demands, being alone after almost two decades of marriage, and running the business she adored with every fiber of her being.
Enter Vera Kay Jenkins.
Her husband Glen also passed away a couple of months after Emma, so grief took pity on us all and adhered us all together little by little, forging a strong bond between her and our children. Although she’s in her sixties, she’s always full of energy and willing to help with getting the kids to practice and recitals as well as pitching in around the shop.