How to Bake a Perfect Life - Barbara O'Neal [139]
“We could drive around, see if we can find something like that if you want to.”
Merlin climbs into the backseat. Maybe he’ll help us. “Yeah. If we don’t find any leads by nine, we’ll eat and go to bed.”
“Deal.”
But we don’t find anything. Exhausted, we head for a Village Inn, and my cell phone buzzes with a text from an unfamiliar number.
Help. I’m at a coffee shop in El Paso. So, so, so sorry about everything. Can you help me? Katie.
I text back:
Address?
She gives it to me.
STAY RIGHT THERE!
I ask the waitress for directions, and she sends us barely two miles down the road. When we pull up in front, Merlin goes insane barking and flinging his body around the backseat, and I have a hard time even getting him on his leash. When he leaps out, I see Katie, too: She’s looking forlorn, in a booth with a glass of water and nothing else, staring out the window into the darkness.
The moment she sees us, she’s on her feet and running, out the door before we reach it. She launches herself into my arms, full body weight, and I catch her close to me, hugging her, and both of us are crying. “I’m so stupid, Ramona. I’m so sorry. My mother stole everything from me, all my clothes—my new clothes!—and the money I took.”
Merlin is wiggling, whining, and shoving himself between our shins, but still Katie clings to me.
I hold her as tightly as I can, so enormously relieved that my legs are shaking. “It doesn’t matter. I’m so glad you’re safe. So glad.” I kiss her curly hair and breathe in the slightly sweaty teenager smell of her neck. Love sloshes through me like the ocean, changing me forever and ever, giving me yet another hostage to fortune. “Let’s go.”
“Can we eat? I am so, so, so hungry.”
“Of course.” I look at Jonah over her head, and he nods.
Katie, Merlin, and I take one room and Jonah takes the room next door. Katie calls Sofia from my phone and talks to Lily, too, then we all crash like the dead.
Naturally, I awaken long before anyone else. Leashing Merlin, I walk for a couple of miles in the cool morning air, mulling things over. The long, quiet drive had given me plenty of time to think, and I’ve come to some decisions about the bakery, and Katie, and my life.
I can’t continue to live so precariously, with the bakery so close to the edge. I’m exhausted, and it isn’t fair to my employees or my customers to teeter on the brink of disaster all the damned time. I don’t want to lose it, but I am also really tired of working so many hours with no time for a life. I need balance, which I haven’t had since starting to build the bakery.
It’s time to make a decision. If I sell the business to the Gallagher Group, I’ll lose some autonomy, but I’ll gain some freedom and peace of mind. It might ease things with my family, as well.
I also have been thinking of Katie’s presence as a temporary thing, but she’s with us now for good. Me, or Sofia and Oscar and the new baby, or whatever arrangement we make. Sofia will need me, that much is clear—she’ll need all of us. Oscar will need all of us—his wife and his children, his mother-in-law and all the rest of my clan, annoying as they can be.
And Katie needs us all, too. My mistake has been in thinking that she could heal from all her wounds if I simply fed her well and helped her find some hobbies and loved her. In time, all those things will help, but she also needs some therapy, some professional help, to allow her to express whatever she’s feeling, to work through the shit that’s been piled on her poor young head.
Finally, I think about Jonah. As I walk along the road, just the thought of him makes my throat hurt. I am in love. I don’t know what to do with that.
I’ve had three cups of coffee in the attached restaurant before the other two awaken. They come into the restaurant looking sleepy and tousled. Jonah’s eyes are a little swollen, and he has a slight cowlick in the back of his hair. His jaw is bristly, and he rubs it apologetically. “I didn’t bring a razor.”
“Looks sexy. Very 1985.”
His eyes crinkle at