Bliss (11 page)

Sera was abruptly aware they were causing quite a scene in the refrigerated section. The tittering onlookers she'd earlier feared had materialized with a vengeance upon hearing the commotion, peeping out from behind cereal boxes and gawking across butcher counters. Suddenly she had the desire to be very, very far away. Above all things in this life, she wanted to stay the ever-loving hell out of her aunt's sex life.

“I'm gonna let you two duke it out,” she said, backing away slowly into an aisle that advertised teas for every complaint from “feminine distress” to “involuntary astral projection.”
Good thing I followed Aunt Paulie out here in the rental car, or I'd be marooned at the organic O.K. Corral.
“I'll be late for the auction if I don't get a move-on, so I'll just be going, and catch up with you back home later, okay?”

Pauline spared a nod, but didn't look away from her standoff with her beloved.

“Hortencia, it was, er, nice to meet you. I'm, ah, very glad to hear you're alive, and, um…” Sera stuttered to a halt, stymied for a socially correct exit.

“Thank you, dear,” said Hortencia. Her gaze remained locked with Pauline's. “I'll see you again soon. Tonight, in fact, since I'll be attending the Back Room Babes' get-together as usual.”

“You wouldn't dare!” cried Pauline. She looked ready to swipe the contents of the dairy case clean to the floor. “The BRBs are
my
club, and I say who the members are. And you… you lying, man-loving hussy, are officially disinvited!”

“You just try and stop me from showing up, you hypocritical old harpy,” Hortencia flashed back at her.

She had more to say—a lot more. But Sera had already fled to the safety of a row of esoteric canned goods, and was making a beeline for the door as the argument raged behind her.

Was I the only one Pauline lied to about this? I must have been—she'd never have gotten away with such a whopper in a town this small.
Now Aruni's nonchalance at the diner made so much more sense. So did Pauline's hinky behavior this past week.

Well, hell.

Sera had a great deal to think about. The very reason she'd come out here—to comfort her grieving aunt—had just been called into question. But there was no going back now. Santa Fe, it seemed, still had a few surprises to lob her way. She'd known it was a magical place, but a full-on resurrection?

Nice one,
she complimented her new home as she stepped out into the sunlight and headed for her car.
I truly did not see that coming.

A
pparently I'm destined to live in the land of grumpy people today,
Sera thought as she tiptoed around the edges of the pie whisperer's going-out-of-business-sale.
So much for “enchantment,” I guess.

Still stunned at seeing Hortencia rise from the dead, she'd found her way to the little hole-in-the-wall bake shop run by Malcolm McLeod with some difficulty. (Santa Fe, she'd discovered, justly deserved its reputation as a town laid out by a drunken monk riding backward on a mule.) Tucked away at the edge of what had once been a dusty office park on Cerrillos Road, but now hosted an ersatz Chinese restaurant and a dog-grooming parlor as well as the bakery, his place was unimposing from the outside, barely deigning to advertise beyond a small sign that read “Best Pies.” The windows were unwashed, as though to shield the interior from customers' too-curious gazes, and the token awning was faded and fraying. Inside, there was little charm, just a display case that doubled as a take-out counter and a cash register up front, no seats for waiting customers or even pictures on the walls. In the back, where the sale was about to start, the environment was all stainless steel business. The
atmosphere,
however, was borderline toxic.

The man of the hour was following what few customers had come to his auction about with a gimlet glare, clenching his fists with barely suppressed ire every time someone so much as peeked their snoot in a pantry or hefted a pie pan to check for dings or scratches. The guy looked positively murderous.

But it was worth enduring a little sourness. McLeod had some seriously state-of-the-art ovens.
Ah, Blodgett,
Sera thought.
You may not look flashy, but you've sure got it where it counts.
And Mr. McLeod had a
lot
of what counted—at least to Sera. His chest freezers and reach-ins were immaculate—and exactly what she needed. His convection ovens and industrial range showed the patina of use, but also the cleanliness of the well-maintained machines they were—not to mention, they were truly top of the line. His mixers were displayed next to every conceivable desirable attachment, and some Sera had rarely seen outside of a KitchenAid catalog. No dough roller, she noted. Too proud, probably, and she didn't blame him for distrusting the damn things—horror stories abounded about crush injuries and maimed cooks. Plus, they took the precision, the intuition out of baking. (Still, she'd make an exception for a nice fondant sheeter, if she ever did wedding cakes again. Back when she'd had her custom cake orders piling up by the dozen, having one of those babies had really saved her bacon.)

He had bun racks, worktables, baker's scales, dough proofers, and more—all in tip-top condition and clean to the point of making one's teeth ache. And his bakery cases—both dry display and refrigerated models—looked like they'd just rolled off the factory floor. New, they'd have run her upwards of $6,000 a pop. Used, Malcolm would be damn lucky to take in half that. Problem was, he didn't look any too eager to part with a single piece, despite the starting bid stickers on most of the bakery's fixtures, and the eviction notice glued to his front door. Indeed, the small, Santa-bellied Scotsman seemed set to slap the questing fingers of the first person who dared open an oven door for closer inspection.

Boom!

Some fool with a death wish had just sent an unwary elbow across a counter, knocking a rolling pin to the floor. Apparently, this was the ice cream on Malcolm's pie à la mode.

“Out, out, out, OUUUUUUUT!”

Except it sounded more like “Oot, oot, oot, ooooooot!”

Serafina smothered a giggle. And while the red-faced Scotsman chased the half-dozen or so other prospective buyers out of his joint, flapping his stained apron and shaking his fist, she stayed where she stood, leaning hipshot against one of his chest freezers. Swallowing chuckles, she observed the man she'd just decided was going to come work for her.

With his waist-length, white wavy hair and long handlebar mustache, he could have been Arlo Guthrie's twin. However, Serafina very much doubted Arlo would've chosen to sport Army surplus combat fatigues beneath a kitchen apron that looked like it had seen action in Da Nang. Nor would Arlo have condoned Malcolm's Rambo-style bandanna, she suspected, though the paunch was probably just
okay, maaan.

Malcolm spotted Serafina.

“What're ye still doing here? Didn't ye hear me say ‘out'?” He took a menacing step toward Sera. But Serafina Wilde was a veteran of Blake Austin's kitchens—not to mention his bed—and she wasn't afraid.

“It's not going to be much of an auction with only one bidder,” she pointed out. She crossed her legs at the ankle and leaned more comfortably against the freezer.

“
One
bidder? I'll have
none
of ye! I'll rot in debtor's prison before I'll sell my beautiful ovens to a flock of philistines like ye. Now get gone, ye sodding vulture, before I call the cops.” He swooped down with surprising grace for such a stout man and swept up the toppled rolling pin, examining it for damage.

Sera found the notion of debtor's prison quaint. Compared to the modern hells of bankruptcy court and predatory debt collectors, such a place might be preferable.

“Hard to part with it all, huh?”

McLeod looked up from the rolling pin, suspicion beetling his caterpillar brows. “What would ye know about it?”

“I lost everything that mattered to
me
not too long ago. I thought I'd never cook again, and it nearly killed me.”

“What're ye on about, ye loon? Ye hardly look old enough to reach the back burner on the stove, let alone cook on it.” If he'd scoffed any harder, he'd risk hocking up a lung.

Sera stuck out her hand, ignoring the gibe. “I'm Serafina Wilde. I'm opening a new bakery here in town, and I want what you've got. Including
you,
Mr. McLeod.” She paused a beat, enjoying the way his jaw dropped. “I'd like you to come work for me.”

“Are ye daft?” Malcolm couldn't have looked more offended if she'd compared his pies unfavorably with Mrs. Smith's. “Work for ye? As what? I'm no dish washer, and I ain't bussing tables at no sissified, ginned-up Starbucks—ye can forget about that right now!”

Serafina took this for the bluster it was. “It's nothing like that. What I need is an experienced opener—someone to prep the goods and set the doughs rising before the rest of the staff gets in.”

“Och, aye, I ken ye now. Someone to do the
real
work, while ye get yer beauty sleep and roll in just in time to put sprinkles on a few wee cupcakes and call yerself a baker.”

He was really working hard to offend her. But Sera saw past it to the scarred,
scared
man beneath. “Mr. McLeod, let me put it to you straight.” She leaned forward, grabbing the rolling pin out of his hand and prodding one pointy end into his paunch. She couldn't help feeling like she was poking the Pillsbury Doughboy, though she wasn't likely to elicit any giggles here. “You're a man out of options. From what I hear, you're practically blacklisted in this town. No one will work with you; you've alienated just about every eating establishment in Santa Fe—and given how many restaurants this little city's got, that's no mean feat.” She poked him again. “Your place is out of business, you probably owe thousands on the rent and the fixtures, and let's face it… you aren't getting any younger.” Poke, poke. “You've got just one thing going for you.” She plunked the pin down on the freezer's top.

“Aye, and what's that?”

“You're probably the single best pie maker on the planet.”

There was a moment of silence.

McLeod's face went just a wee bit ruddy, if she wasn't mistaken, but his eyes glared pure suspicion as he sized Sera up more closely. Then he huffed, chewing his mustaches and rocking on the balls of his feet. “Tell me something I
dinna
know.”

“Oh, not that there isn't room for improvement, mind you,” Sera went on, biting back a smile. “We should talk about your crust. I noticed you used lard instead of shortening when I tried the pie at the Sunshine—and lord love you for it—but I think the flour was somewhat inferior. Have you tried King Arthur Fl—”

“They won't sell ta me,” he grumbled, cutting her off as if her suggestion were so obvious as to be offensive. “I
know
they're the best, but after I sent them that letter about their cheap, sleazy shortcut of a pie filler, I wound up on their no-sell list. Sure, I could've found a way around it—I could've bought what I needed on the sly—but it was the
principle
of the thing.”

Must have been a hell of a letter.
She smiled inwardly, picturing the scandalized expression on the face of the nice customer service lady in Norwich, Vermont, upon opening Malcolm's vituperative missive. “Principle gets you in trouble a lot, doesn't it?” Sera observed.

Malcolm's expression fell somewhere between aggrieved and caught out. He crossed his arms and said nothing, but he looked less likely to shove her out the door than he had.

“What if I told you you'd never have to compromise if you came to work for me? I wouldn't tell you how to make your pies, and you'd do most of your work alone, before anyone else gets in. No human interaction, unless
you
seek it out.”

“What's the catch?” Malcolm wanted to know.

Serafina became all business. “You need to know a few things, Mr. McLeod. First, I'm damn good at what I do—just like you. I don't fuck around or cut corners when it comes to pastries. I intend to bake and serve the single finest desserts this town has ever seen, and I'm not going to let anyone's ego get in the way of that. I'm no novice—I've been working in kitchens since I was eighteen, and cooked with assholes that make you look like goddamn Mother Teresa. It's going to be
my
place,
my
rules, and
my
menu. All excepting your pies. Over that, you'll keep total control—name, fame, and recipes. Got it?”

Malcolm had begun to lose his set-in scowl at her first profanity, and by the end of her spiel, he had cracked open a full-fledged, albeit rusty grin.

“Aye, I got it, lassie.”

“You in?”

His hesitation was briefer than Serafina would have bet. He must be truly desperate.

“Aye, I'm in.”

“Good. 'Cause I don't have time to spend all day coddling your artistic sensibilities. I've got to find a contractor and get the ball rolling. I want my grand opening to happen before I hit thirty. That is,
if
we can agree on a price for these fixtures.” She waved indicatively. “I'll take the lot if you can arrange transportation—and you don't try to gouge me.”

“Might be we could come to an understanding,” Malcolm conceded. He pulled an order pad from the pocket of his apron, along with the stub of a pencil. He scribbled a figure on the paper, tore it off, and passed it to Sera with a flourish.

Sera examined his curiously neat schoolboy writing. As the figure registered, she paled, gulped, and snatched the pencil from him. She crossed out the number in two decisive strokes. In her own considerably messier handwriting, she scrawled a counteroffer.

His face grew apoplectic.

Hers grew pugnacious.

The pencil and paper flew back and forth several more times. In the end, Sera was left wanting a cigarette and perhaps a nice Thai massage, but they'd arrived at a figure that wouldn't bankrupt her.

She felt a wave of relief she worked hard not to show. She was running on a tight budget as it was. Her own savings were modest, and opening an eatery was probably one of the riskiest, most expensive gambles a small businesswoman could undertake. Pauline had been unbelievably generous, offering not just to pay the rent until she got on her feet, but to underwrite her initial expenses and construction costs, in return for being one of the principles of the business and a guarantee that she'd always have a job at the bakery (and get to make her own hours). Sera had known Pauline had money, but never really grasped exactly how lucrative her “Ourgasm” movement and the attendant book sales had been for her aunt. Since the seventies, Pauline had invested wisely, and she swore she could afford to take a flyer on a new venture without risking her retirement. Still, even knowing Pauline could afford the “investment,” as she called it, she didn't like to gamble with her aunt's money. Any way she could minimize costs, she'd take, and gladly.

“Okay, Mr. McLeod, seems you've got a deal, provided this figure includes delivery.”

He nodded. “Aye, though now ye're breakin' my back as well as my balls,” he grumbled.

“The ball-breaking's a freebie,” Sera said, giving Malcolm a cheeky grin as she turned to go. “I've got to be going. I have to start interviewing builders or your equipment's not going to do me much good anytime soon.”

Malcolm's face took on a cunning expression. “Need a contractor, do ye?”

“Why, you know someone?”

“Know someone?” His chest puffed proudly. “Lass, I
am
someone. Licensed and bonded, and all.”

“Bullshit.”

“'Tis true, though ye may not credit it. I did all the work on this place m'self. Had a lot of trades in my day. Helps, when ye've had a few differences with folk here and there.”

Sera took a closer look at the man she was putting so much trust in. She'd place him in his early sixties, with hands that bore scars and calluses that could have come from construction work rather than baking. Beneath the extra weight his pies had put on him, he looked solid, built like a bull. She could see him exchanging his apron for a tool belt. But there was no way to tell just by looking if he was as honest as he was strong. Sure, Asher had put in a good word for him, but how well did she know
Asher?
“Got references?”