Chapter Ten
Saturday came round all too soon. This time, the Bake-Off was taking place at the Main Street Diner. Beehive-haired Flo had agreed to let them use her ovens and was teasing all the bachelors about picking one of them as her next apprentice grill cook. Jodie Monroe was MCing the event again, and Jane McCullough had everyone organized.
The counter with its red leather-covered stools bolted to the floor in front of it was the setting for the Chinese auction lots; there were eight baskets representing each bachelor’s favorite bits about Marietta. Tyler was truly grateful that Stacey had helped him put his basket together; thanks to her work with the cellophane and ribbons, it looked pretty.
One of the diner’s waitresses was selling raffle tickets—the cloakroom type that had two strips of identical numbers per sheet. On the strip that stayed in the book, she was busy writing down names and telephone numbers on the back of each ticket, and gave the other strip to the person buying the tickets so they could place their tickets in the little plastic box in front of whichever baskets they wanted to win.
Everyone was filling up the tables, ready to watch the Bake-Off, and Tyler noticed that this time the elementary school’s table seemed to have merged with the table containing staff and clients from Carter’s Gym. Lyle Tate was there rather than at the fire crew’s table—though that was probably because it meant he had more chance to chat with and charm half the women in the room. He caught Tyler’s eye, winked, and made an L-shape on his forehead.
Tyler grinned and mimed aching muscles, earning him an answering grin and a thumbs-up from Lyle.
As before, the judges had their own little table; and for the duration of the Bake-Off the Diner was running a special menu of coffee, tea, sodas, and baked goods.
The eight bachelors assembled in front of their worktables, as directed by Jane, while Jodie Monroe introduced everyone and ran through what the bachelors would be baking and how the Chinese auction worked.
And then it was time to bake.
He glanced over at Stacey, who smiled at him, blew him a kiss, and mouthed “good luck—you’ve got this”.
There were no eggs in the recipe, this time, so at least he wasn’t going to drop any and have to borrow from his fellow bakers. But the memory of the over-sticky dough and the not-sticky-enough dough loomed large.
Please, this time, let him do Stacey’s teaching justice.
He had to force himself to breathe properly as he measured out the ingredients for the dough, rubbed the butter into the flour, and added the water.
To his relief this time the dough worked out right and he managed to roll it without it sticking to the marble board or the wooden rolling pin. He sneaked a glance at the other bachelors to see how they were doing, and could see that Jake Price was struggling a bit. Jake looked up and exchanged a wry smile with him.
Funny, they were all so capable in their everyday jobs—but Tyler was aware that he wasn’t the only one having trouble with this baking thing. He knew that it added to the fun for their audience and it meant that they were raising more money for Harry’s House than if the bachelors had all been as accomplished at baking as Ryan Henderson or Rachel Vaughn. It was a good thing. But he for one was going to be glad when it was all over.
He carefully folded his pastry into quarters, the way Stacey had shown him. Then he placed the pastry into the pie dish. He held his breath in case the pastry split when he unfolded it, but it seemed to be going well. When he glanced up, Stacey caught his eye again and gave him an encouraging smile. Funny how she made him feel warm from the inside out.
He added the blueberry filling, then wetted the edge of the pastry on the pie dish as she’d shown him and put the lid on top. He looked round at his fellow bachelors and everyone seemed to be at a similar stage, which was reassuring. Maybe this was going to work out OK after all. He cut off the excess dough from the sides of the pie dish, crimped the edge, added steam holes on the top, said a silent prayer, and put his pie into the stove to cook.
While the pies were cooking, the final raffle tickets were sold for the Chinese auction baskets and the tickets were drawn to much whooping and catcalling.
And then it was time for the pies to come out.
To Tyler’s horror, there was a crack across the top of the pie and the pastry had caught slightly at one edge. When something similar had happened at Stacey’s, she’d simply smiled and told him to put ice cream on top, but he could hardly do that here.
He had to face it: he was going to come last. Again.
The judges came round to inspect the pies.
“I’ve got a ton more respect for what you do, now, Ry,” Tyler said to Ryan Henderson. “Pastry’s hard.”
Ryan laughed. “I’m hoping that yours is buttery and crumbly, not hard.”
Tyler smiled back. “Believe me, so am I—I just wish that edge hadn’t caught.”
“We’re not going to taste that edge,” Ryan said, “but you might want to prime someone to buy that slice for you at the auction afterward.”
“Yeah.”
“And it could’ve been worse,” Ryan said. “We gave you a free choice of pie. We could’ve been really mean and made you make your own phyllo pastry.”
“I don’t think I want to know how you make phyllo pastry,” Tyler said.
Ryan clapped him on the shoulder. “Come over to the shop someday, and I’ll show you.”
“If it means I get to eat it,” Tyler said, “you’re on.”
The judges tasted each pie in turn and conferred with their score sheets. As before, Langdon Hale, the fire chief, stepped forward to announce the scores.
“Thanks to all our bachelors for again turning up and working so hard,” he said. “And we’re all agreed that the pies are delicious, so I hope everyone’s going to bid generously for the slices when Jane auctions them off.”
There was a general murmur of agreement from the audience.
“In eighth place, with brown sugar peach crumble, is Jake Price.”
Tyler only then realized that he’d been holding his breath—and thank God this time he hadn’t come last.
“In seventh place, with blueberry pie, is Tyler Carter.”
The combined Marietta Elementary and Carter’s Gym table erupted with wolf whistles and cheers.
Tyler could barely concentrate on the rest of the scores, though he noted that Zac Malone was the winner with blackberry and ginger pie.
Flo helped them all portion up the remainder of their pies and put them on paper plates covered with plastic wrap, and then Jane McCullough took over to auction off the pies.
Stacey and Kelly led the school and the gym to buy most of Tyler’s pie, but when he spotted the piece with the burned crust he leapt in to bid for it. “Twenty dollars on top of whatever else is bid,” he said.
And that piece was going straight in the bin.
“Seventh, this time. See? You’re getting better,” Stacey said when he went over to their table.
“Way to go, boss,” Kelly said, and gave him a high five.
“And I’m assuming that my bet with your girl stands for this round, too,” Lyle said. “So that’s twenty dollars from me into the fund, and I have to sing something especially for you at my next FlintWorks gig, sugar—right?”
Stacey smiled. “Sounds good to me. I wish I’d said that you had to dress like Lady Gaga, too, as well as sing her song.”
“I’d pay good money to see that,” Tyler said.
“Me, too,” Kelly added.
“And me,” Tara said.
Lyle groaned. “Ladies—and Carter.” He clutched both hands dramatically to his chest. “You wouldn’t make me…”
They nodded in unison. “You bet we would.”
Lyle looked at them. “If I do it—and I mean if—then it’s going to cost you fifty dollars each,” he said.
“For that much, you wear eyeliner and a dress,” Kelly said.
“Just one tiny problem,” Lyle said. “She wears a tuxedo in the video for that song.”
“You don’t wriggle out of it that easily. I’ll get you a dress,” Tara said.
“You could always borrow one from Carol Bingley,” Kelly said with a grin. “Lyle, you’re probably about the only person in town who could charm her into lending you a dress.”
“This is getting out of hand,” Lyle said. “So we’ll compromise. I’ll sing for lovely Stacey here, I’ll wear eyeliner and a wig for Kelly, and I want a donation from you lot for Harry’s House and a plate of buffalo wings and a beer after the gig.”
“Deal,” Kelly said, and shook his hand.
*
Afterward, Tyler was smiling all the way back to their apartment block. “I can’t wait for that FlintWorks gig. Kelly’s going to enjoy finding him a wig. Something totally outrageous.”
“And Lyle’s a good sport. He’ll wear it,” Stacey said.
“Yeah. He’s one of the good guys.” Tyler hugged her. “I’m glad I didn’t come last. I kind of feel I let you down, last week.”
“No, you didn’t. Baking’s a new skill for you. You wouldn’t expect me to be a first-class ice skater after that single lesson you gave me at the rink last week, would you?”
“Well, no,” he admitted.
“Exactly—it’s the same thing.”
“Point conceded,” he said. “So what do you want to do this evening? I would take you out to dinner, but as it’s the nearest Saturday to Valentine’s I think most places will already be fully booked.”
“We don’t need to go out. Could we do some more boxing?” she asked.
He was warmed all the way through that she actually liked what he’d been doing with her. Janine had never really been interested in his job. “Sure we can.”
They stopped by her apartment so she could change into leggings, T-shirt, and sneakers, and then back at his apartment he pushed the furniture back to give them floor space and took her through the warm-up.
“One-two, punch from the shoulder, keep my arms up and my elbows down, and pivot for ‘two’,” she said, demonstrating the move. “Three-four is elbows up, and pivot.”
“Great—let’s do this.”
“And we check my reach first,” she said.
“Absolutely.”
“And I punch hard.”
“Yup.”
She smiled when he started playing “Little Red Rooster”. “Is this one of your chicken songs?”
“It’s gone down very well in class,” he said with a grin.
But he noticed that she was very focused and was frowning when she punched. He’d been there before on a one-to-one session, when his client had been seriously fed up about something and needed to blow off steam.
And he wondered…
Once he’d taken her through the cool down, he said, “Your punches were quite a bit harder today. Would I be right in guessing that you had someone in mind?”
She looked away. “Maybe.”
“I can’t imagine you wanting to punch anyone.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Just sometimes.”
He waited, and eventually she sighed. “OK. I had a text from my dad this morning, trying to guilt me into calling home.”
“You don’t call your parents?” He was surprised; he was close to his own family and spoke to them most days. The only reason his mom hadn’t been the one to teach him to bake was because she and his dad were currently in New Zealand visiting her sister, and Lynnie lived an hour and a half’s drive away in Billings and he’d persuaded her not to drive back to Marietta in the snow just to see him in the Bake-Off.
“I really d-don’t enjoy using the phone,” Stacey said. “I know my hearing aid is supposed to have a setting where I can hear the phone clearly, but it’s never really worked for me and I end up having to use the loudspeaker to hear the other person talking. My father gets c-cross because he says there’s too much interference and he can’t hear me properly.” She shrugged. “So usually I text them, and it avoids the issue.”
Tyler was seriously beginning to dislike Stacey’s parents. If he’d been hearing-impaired, his parents would’ve made every effort to make life easier for him without making him feel like some special snowflake. They would’ve just worked round it and made sure he felt included. But Stacey’s father seemed to be a bully who insisted on everything being done his way, and he didn’t seem to be able to see what an amazing woman Stacey was.
“In your shoes,” Tyler said, “I think I’d want to punch him, too.”
“He’s my dad,” she said with a sigh, “and I’m s-supposed to love him and respect him. And I’m just as bad because I’m using my hearing impairment as an excuse not to call—the truth is, I just don’t want to end up having another fight with him and disappointing him again.”
How on earth could a woman like Stacey Allman possibly disappoint her parents? “He’s your dad,” Tyler said quietly, “and dads are meant to protect and support their daughters, not bully them. Plus respect has to be earned.”
“I think he had a difficult childhood,” Stacey said. “I don’t really remember my grandparents, but my mom let a couple of things slip that made me think they gave him a hard time. And it’s hard to be a parent when you don’t have a good role model.”
“You’re a much nicer person than I am,” Tyler said, “because my view is that if you don’t know how to do something, you find someone who can teach you. You make the effort. Plus, if you’ve had a hard time as a kid, surely you want life to be better for your own kids and you treat them the way you wish you’d been treated?”
She looked awkward. “Ignore me. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
He held her close. “I’m sorry, too. It’s not my place to criticize someone I’ve never even met. And it takes all sorts to make a world.” He just wished that Stacey’s father had been a bit kinder. She’d made the excuse for her father that he hadn’t had a good role model; neither had Stacey, yet she still managed to be kind, sweet and caring and she stuck up for her students. Everything her father had failed to do for her.
“He’s from a d-different generation,” she said.
That still didn’t excuse him, in Tyler’s eyes. But he was glad that she’d at least had her aunt Joanie to bat her corner. “Maybe you could IM your parents instead of calling them—that way you don’t have to struggle with hearing, and they still get the feel of a conversation,” he suggested.
“I’ve tried that.” She looked away. “They don’t really like using a computer.”
Give me strength, he thought. Could Stacey’s parents not make one tiny bit of effort to help her? One little concession to make her life easier? “I have a couple of friends who are really good with technology,” he said. “I could run the situation by them to see if they have any bright ideas?”
“Thanks, but I’ll suck it up and call them. Like I said, I’m using my hearing impairment as an excuse. But maybe I’ll wait until tomorrow to call them,” Stacey said.
“OK.” He kissed her lightly. “Come and have a shower with me—and then maybe we can order pizza and chill out with a movie.”
“I’d like that,” she said. “Can I grab some clothes from next door, first?”
“Sure you can.” He paused. “And maybe you’d like to bring your pj’s?”
Her eyes went wide. “Are you asking m-me to stay over?”
“Yes.”
“OK.”
She was gone a while, and Tyler was at the point of wondering if she’d changed her mind—but then she knocked on his door. When he answered, he could see that she’d brought her pajamas and toothbrush with her.
“Everything OK?” he asked.
“I, ah, had another message from my dad. So I returned the call.”
He didn’t push her to tell him everything. It was pretty obvious that it hadn’t been a great conversation. Instead, he led her through to his bathroom, gently removed all her clothes, and stepped with her into the shower. He lathered every inch of skin, cherishing her; but he could still feel the tension in her shoulders.
He dried her off just as tenderly and helped her into her pajamas: a plain jersey camisole top with lacy edges, and trousers with little Scottie dogs on them. “Very cute,” he said. “Like you.”
She went slightly pink. “Sorry. I probably should’ve just stayed at my place and kept my grouchiness to myself.”
“Absolutely not—let’s order pizza and choose a movie.”
They curled up on his sofa together under a fleecy blanket.
“Instead of a movie,” he suggested, “we could watch a rerun of Friends.”
“Are you sure you wouldn’t mind?” she asked.
“I’m sure,” he said. “My sister always says that Friends, pizza, and hot chocolate makes even the roughest day feel OK again.”
“She has a very good point.”
To Tyler’s relief, her smile reached her eyes. He grinned. “And I promise I won’t make you eat the piece of pie I bid for.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“Burned edges.” He shook his head in puzzlement. “How can a pie just burn in one place?”
“It depends how you roll it, I guess,” she said.
After they’d eaten pizza, he made her a mug of hot chocolate. Tucked up with him under the blanket on the sofa, with the hot chocolate and one of her all-time favorite episodes of Friends on his TV, Tyler thought that Stacey seemed way, way happier.
He made love to her very tenderly that night, and she fell asleep in his arms.
*
The next morning, Stacey woke in Tyler’s bed, with her back to him; he was spooned round her body, holding her close. What now? Did she wait until he woke up, or did she wriggle out of bed? Should she go back to her own place while he was still asleep? She’d completely forgotten the etiquette about this kind of thing, and she felt slightly awkward until he kissed her bare shoulder. “Good morning.”
He didn’t sound in the slightest bit fazed, and that gave her confidence. She turned round to face him. “Good morning.”
“I,” he said, “am going to make you breakfast in bed. Stay put.”
Given that he’d admitted to burning toast, she was pretty sure that breakfast wasn’t going to involve anything actually cooked. But then he brought her a tray with a perfect mug of coffee—plus a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice, and a bowl of granola topped with Greek yoghurt and out-of-season strawberries.
“Wait—we need a finishing touch. I know it’s not Valentine’s until Tuesday, but…” He switched on his phone and held it out to her, and she could see a photograph of a single beautiful red rose.
She smiled at him. “That’s so cute.”
“I can hardly go and steal one from the communal garden—not in February,” he said with a smile, “so this was the best option I could think of.”
“It’s lovely—thank you. I feel really spoiled.”
*
Stacey clearly wasn’t used to the men she dated treating her like this, Tyler thought, whereas Janine had pretty much taken for granted that he’d always bring her breakfast in bed on a Sunday morning if he wasn’t working. He’d thought that Janine was the love of his life, but now he was beginning to think he’d been wrong; every day he was falling a little bit more in love with Stacey, with her sweetness and kindness.
After breakfast, she helped him wash up. “So are you working the late shift today?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Are you up for a baking lesson this morning? The last Bake-Off involves cake, right?”
“Right—and yes, I’d love a lesson, as long as it’s not layer cake.” Though the one good thing about that mess of an afternoon was that he’d met Stacey properly.
She laughed. “No, I think we decided on a glazed cake, didn’t we? The one I normally bake is lemon, but we can make it an orange one so it’s that little bit different.”
“Let’s do it.”
He liked the calm, quiet way she went about her kitchen, finding the equipment and getting all the ingredients out.
“Do we have to preheat the stove?” he asked.
“We do indeed,” she said, “to 350 degrees. I haven’t had time to get the butter to room temperature, so just ignore what I’m about to do,” she added, “because this bit’s very easy to get wrong—and this won’t happen at the Bake-Off anyway, because they’ll make sure your ingredients are at room temperature rather than straight from the fridge.”
She put a stick of butter in the mixing bowl, popped it in the microwave for a few seconds, then tested the butter with a knife.
“You cooked the butter?” he asked.
“I’ve just softened it for you,” she said, “but it’s easy to go too far, and once it’s melted you’re going to find it hard to cream the butter with the sugar.”
“Got you—and creaming the butter and sugar’s the same as we did for the cookies, right?”
“Nope,” she said, “because this time you’ll use my hand mixer. The idea is to get as much air as possible into the mixture, so you keep beating it until it’s pale and fluffy.”
On her instructions, he added three quarters of a cup of powdered sugar plus a teaspoon to the bowl.
She clicked the beaters into place and handed him the cordless hand mixer. “Keep it on a low setting, at first,” she said.
He really meant to put the mixer on the first setting, but somehow he accidentally made it to third and the sugar shot out of the bowl and went all over her worktop.
He looked at her, horrified—but she was laughing.
“That was a learning opportunity,” she said. “Now you know why I said to keep it on low.”
“I can’t believe I’ve messed it up already,” he said ruefully.
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll rescue this and make it into something later. Let’s try again.” She kissed him, then took out another glass mixing bowl and softened the butter for him.
He added the sugar to the bowl and this time kept the mixer on low; once the butter and sugar were amalgamated, on her instructions he increased the setting and kept beating the mixture until it was pale and fluffy.
“Now you add some orange rind,” she said, and handed him an orange and a box grater. “Keep it light, because you just want the rind and the oils, not the pith. You’ll squeeze the rest of the orange to make the glaze.”
He grated rind into the bowl, then beat the batter again quickly.
“Now beat two eggs in a bowl and add them,” she said.
He took his time cracking the eggs into a small bowl, and managed to do it without getting bits of shell among the eggs, then added the eggs to the cake batter.
“Fold in one and a half cups of flour and three teaspoons of baking powder—you do it with a metal spoon,” she said, “so you don’t take the air out that you’ve just spent ages putting in.”
“Fold?” he asked.
“Like this,” she said, and showed him. “Round and down.”
Once he’d stirred in the flour, she said, “Now you can add the milk, a tablespoon at a time. You want what my aunt Joanie calls a dropping consistency—all that means is the batter will drop off the spoon when you shake it gently.”
“And if I add too much milk?” he asked, remembering the mess he’d made by adding too much liquid to the pastry.
“That’s why you do it one at a time and test it after each one,” she said with a smile.
It took four tablespoons to get the right consistency.
“Now you pour the batter into a loaf tin—and this is where I cheat because I use a ready-made liner instead of cutting baking parchment.”
“Will I be allowed to do that at the Bake-Off?”
“I don’t see why not. And once the batter’s spread out evenly, you bake it for forty to fifty minutes,” she said.
Five minutes before the cake was due to come out of the stove, she helped him juice the orange and added two tablespoons of granulated sugar to the bowl. “Stick it in the microwave for about thirty seconds,” she said, “so the sugar dissolves in the juice.”
Then she showed him how to test the cake with a skewer so it came out clean with no cake batter sticking to it.
“This is the glaze part. You stick the skewer very gently into the top of the cake, so the glaze sinks in more easily, then spoon the orange syrup over the top and let the cake cool in the tin.”
He did what she suggested, then stared at the finished result. It actually looked like a cake. “You’re awesome,” he said.
When she brushed his praise aside, he said, “No, really—I mean it, Stacey. You’re amazing. You’re kind and you’re bright and I can’t believe how much difference you’ve made to my world in the last couple of weeks. Without you, I’d be really dreading this Bake-Off thing, but you’ve made it fun. And I feel as if I could tackle something in the kitchen now, instead of backing away because I’ve been so hopeless in the past.”
“You,” she said, “are very far from hopeless. Look at the way you skate.”
“You know what I mean. And you’ve inspired me on the kids’ class project. I never would have thought about it without you—that I can help make life a little bit less of a struggle for vulnerable kids. We’re a good team.” He kissed her. “You’re amazing, Stacey. Never let anyone make you feel otherwise.” Especially, he thought, your father. Because he clearly doesn’t have a clue.
He took the cake to work.
“Marry her now,” Kelly demanded after the first taste. Tyler laughed it off, but the words stuck in his head all afternoon. Except it was nothing to do with the way Stacey baked, and everything to do with the way she made him feel.
*
Stacey thought about what Tyler had said during the afternoon. She wouldn’t describe herself as amazing; but she also wasn’t the dumb, useless person her father always made her feel that she was.
And maybe it was finally time to do something about that.
She picked up the phone and called him.
“Why are you calling?” he asked. “We spoke yesterday.”
“I know. That’s why I’m c-calling, Dad.” She took a deep breath. Now wasn’t the time to stutter. She wanted him to hear her words, not nitpick about her delivery. “I love you, but I don’t like the way you treat me, so I’m not coming to Missoula the weekend after next. I don’t see the point of driving for nearly four hours to visit you, only for you to make me feel bad, the second I walk in the door.”
“That’s ridiculous. Stacey, you’re so d—”
“Stop, Dad,” she cut in. “If you were going to say ‘dumb’, you know it’s not true. I graduated top of my class. I’m hearing-impaired and I have a stutter, yes, but I’m not stupid.”
“You’re wasting your degree, working in a backwater school in a little hick town,” he snarled.
“Marietta isn’t a hick town,” she said. “It’s beautiful out here. Which you’d know if you and Mom had ever bothered to come and see me or Aunt Joanie.”
He snorted. “Joanie’s a bad influence on you.”
“You mean, she stands up to you.”
“I don’t know what’s got into you, Stacey Allman.”
“I’ve finally grown a backbone,” she said. “And I’m not prepared to listen to you putting me down all the time. Why do you need to do it, Dad? Why do you always tell me I’m useless and stupid?”
“So you’ll fight back and prove me wrong.”
It was the last thing she’d been expecting. And she wasn’t sure if it made her feel more hurt or angry. Did he really think she was that easy to manipulate? “As a schoolteacher, I can tell you that’s not the most helpful psychology,” she said. “And, on a personal note, before I do anything new, I hear your voice telling me that I’m going to fail. And I have to get past that every single time before I can move on.”
“Are you blaming m—?” he began.
“No, Dad, I’m explaining how what you say actually affects me—you might not mean it, but it’s how it is,” she cut in. “I want things to be different in the future. I want to be able to enjoy a visit with my parents, like normal people do, instead of dreading it because I know that I’m a constant disappointment to you and you’re going to make sure I know it.” She took a deep breath. “Maybe I wasn’t planned, but if you and Mom really hadn’t wanted me disrupting your life, then maybe you should’ve given me up for adoption to someone who did actually want me.”
For the first time she could ever remember, her father was silent.
“And that,” she said, “is why I’m not coming to Missoula, the weekend after next. If you really want to see me and have a proper relationship with me, you know where I am.”
And then, very gently, she cut the connection.
Her hands were shaking, but she felt better than she had in a long, long time. She’d finally stood up to her father and told him what she wanted to change in her relationship with her parents. And she knew exactly why she’d finally had the confidence to do it: Tyler. He’d taught her that she could do things, that she wasn’t automatically going to fail. Boxing, ice-skating, standing up to her parents… She could do it. Do it all.