“All baking and cooking channels?” he asked.
“Nope. I only watch comedies and reality shows that are nothing like actual reality. I can’t take television seriously.”
“What do you take seriously?” he asked.
“Birthday cake.”
He nodded. “Cake can make or break a good party.”
“Cake is the star of every birthday party and wedding,” she said. “It’s the guest of honor.”
Gus smiled, liking the way the sun picked up the lighter brown in Jack’s dark hair. He smiled back. At that moment, she wondered what it would be like to run her fingers through the hair that waved away from his high forehead.
“Jack,” Virginia said as she came out the shop door. “I see you’ve met the most talented lady in Bayside.” Virginia turned to Gus. “He’s had a love affair with sugar since he could walk. Used to drive the bakery vendor at the Point nuts all summer.”
“He did steal one cookie,” Gus said. “Right out of my van.”
“I’m not surprised,” Virginia replied. “He couldn’t help himself, I’m sure. You have to admit, you’ve got baking in your blood. I was just talking to your aunt about having you be the STRIPE sergeant this summer.”
Aunt Augusta stood in the doorway behind Virginia, hands held out in a gesture of innocence, eyes huge.
“STRIPE?” Gus asked, raising an eyebrow at Jack.
“You don’t want to know,” he said, leaning close to her as his mother turned to say goodbye to Aunt Augusta. “But whatever she asks you to do, I suggest you say no.” He wrinkled his brow and leaned back, cocking his head. “Wait a minute. Are you working at Starlight Point this summer?”
“Yes. Didn’t you know? I...”
Virginia sailed between them, took Jack’s arm with one hand and grabbed the wagon’s handle with the other. Jack stared at Gus as if he was trying to figure out a puzzle, but his mother’s momentum tugged him away.
“We’ll talk,” Virginia said over her shoulder. “Later. I need a strong woman for my mission.”
Betty’s sleepy glance lingered on Gus as she rode in the wagon behind Virginia and Jack Hamilton. Jack turned and looked back, too, and Gus wondered what it would be like to see him every day at Starlight Point.
GUS PARKED IN front of her bakery on the Starlight Point midway. The wide concrete avenue had snack and souvenir shops down both sides with skyway cars running overhead. A few rides and a theater were mixed in among the shops, most notably a historic carousel right in front of her bakery’s new pink awning.
The back of the van, usually outfitted for transporting wedding cakes, held three large convection ovens. One for each of the bakeshops Gus was leasing for the summer. She had another location in the Wonderful West and one in the Lake Breeze Hotel.
Last year the Point’s baker retired only weeks before Gus came home to Bayside. It seemed like a sign from the baking universe that she should make the leap. Now, though, with the sudden death of Ford Hamilton, she needed to get the paperwork in order to confirm the verbal contract they’d negotiated. Not usually the nervous sort, Gus wondered what changes Jack Hamilton might make.
She opened her van doors and stared at the ovens, hands on hips. She glanced at the side door of her bakery.
“How are you planning to unload all that?” The newly familiar voice sent a ripple through her.
Gus had wondered the same thing. Optimism could only get a girl so far. She needed muscle.
And Jack appeared to have plenty of it.
“I’m taking suggestions,” she said. She could use all the help she could find. Getting three bakeshops equipped, staffed, supplied and running in the next ten days would be as easy as teaching a cat to shave.
He shrugged off his dark gray suit jacket and slung it over the open van door. Gus thought he should shed the crisp white dress shirt, too, just to be on the safe side. But he rolled up the sleeves instead.
“I’m not busy right now,” he said.
Gus laughed. She gestured at the chaos everywhere around them. Maintenance trucks and crews crawled along the midway like ants over ice cream spilled on the sidewalk. Other vendors parked in front of shops and hauled merchandise. The skyway cars groaned into action overhead, shaking off their winter’s rest.
“Right,” she said. “This place probably runs itself.”
Jack looked at the overhead cars and then rubbed his eyes with the heels of both hands. “Sure. How about we trade? I’ll put on an apron with those little bells, and you can wear my name tag, which pretty much asks for trouble.”
The cell phone in his coat pocket rang, vibrating loudly against the metal van door.
“Are you going to answer that?” she asked.
“Can’t. I’m busy helping a vendor I just met. I wondered who would replace our old baker. I grew up stealing sweets from him.” He gestured toward the pink awning. “I like the improvement already.”
Gus pulled a two-wheeled dolly out of the van. “I’m just getting started. I should have been here weeks ago, but I’ve been busy with spring wedding season.”
“How are you going to manage summer wedding season?”
“One cake at a time,” she said as she climbed into the back of the van.
Gus shoved the first boxed oven to the rear and Jack manhandled it onto the cart. She held the door and watched him muscle it right into a corner of her midway bakery.
“Can I talk you into coming to my bakeries in the hotel and the Wonderful West? I still have two ovens in the van.”
She figured there was zero chance of this happening. The owner of Starlight Point wasn’t likely to waste any more of his countdown-to-opening-day time. Especially since he hardly knew her, but now he knew how heavy those boxes were.
Jack glanced at the wall clock. Its hands were stopped, the unplugged cord swinging beneath it. “Looks like I have plenty of time,” he said.
A few of the other vendors waved and then paused, a puzzled expression on their faces as they saw Jack Hamilton toss his suit coat on the floor of the van, shut the back doors and climb in the shotgun seat with Gus at the wheel.
“Do you usually help vendors move in?” she asked.
“There is nothing usual about this year,” he said, unrolling his window. “Turn just before the Scrambler and we can squeeze out the beach gate and drive down the boardwalk to the hotel.”
It was too early for anyone to be tempted by Lake Huron’s cold waters, but lifeguards swept the beach and set up chairs as they passed by.
“I’m sorry about your father,” Gus said.
Jack kept his head turned, watching the beach and lake. “Thank you,” he said quietly.
Gus wanted to ask how he planned to manage the park and if she would see a contract anytime soon. She regretted the handshake and verbal agreement she’d made with Ford Hamilton. She’d planned to sign the papers a month ago, but then everything changed.
The financial risks she’d taken woke her up in the night, but her problems were nothing compared to Jack’s. Losing a parent and gaining a huge family business in one fell swoop? That was a sleep stealer.
“Should be a quick drop-off at the hotel bakeshop. And I bet you know a shortcut through the Wonderful West to my