When he reached the front of the line, the woman taking orders smiled at him.
“I heard you have toys for the toy drive,” she said. “That’s great. We’re hoping to fill two trucks this year.”
Word traveled fast, he thought. “The toys aren’t ready,” he said. “They need to be painted.”
“That’s okay. You have a couple of weeks. Or you can ask for help. We’re always happy to step in.”
“Thanks.” He placed his order, then went to wait.
He shouldn’t be surprised that someone who hadn’t been at the party last night already knew about his offer. He would guess the sharing had nothing to do with him and everything to do will filling two trucks with toys.
He’d made the right decision to move here, he thought. Maybe the town wasn’t what he was used to but he liked it. He felt comfortable. For a second he allowed himself to believe he could have it all. A wife and a few kids. A normal family. Not that it was really possible. He’d seen what the attention did to those outside of the business. How it ripped families apart. Why would he do that to someone he claimed to love?
But as he took his coffee and headed for Paper Moon, he savored the possibilities. The what-ifs. And unexpectedly, the woman he pictured wasn’t his usual faceless stand-in. It was a pretty blonde with an easy laugh. One who had bluntly told him that when it came to weddings, she had no idea what she was doing.
He found Madeline wielding an industrial-size clothing steamer. When she saw him, she turned off the machine and grinned.
“Thanks for rescuing me. Rosalind had a sudden rush of shoppers Wednesday afternoon. That generally ends with wrinkled samples. They have to be fluffed back to perfection for the next customer, which means steaming. On the bright side, I’m sure the warm, moist air is good for my skin.”
He liked the combination of practicality and optimism. She was, he had to admit, a temptation. Were they on a movie set, with a predetermined time limit and a clear understanding that this wasn’t going anywhere, he would be making his move. But they weren’t. And Madeline was a forever kind of woman. She deserved a man who understood that. A man who could believe in forever.
She led the way to her office. “What’s up?”
“I spent a little time online this morning and found some wedding favors.” He pulled a couple of sheets of paper out of his jacket pocket.
“I’m impressed that you know what wedding favors are,” she admitted.
“I’ve been reading up.” He shrugged out of his jacket, then pointed to the papers. “There’s a company that makes custom cookies. They come individually wrapped and can be in different shapes. Ginger and Oliver can have their initials on the cookies or have them shaped like a wedding cake.”
Madeline looked at the pictures he’d downloaded. “They’re charming,” she said. “I love the little cookies in the shape of a wedding cake. That’s perfect. And because they’re wrapped, the guests can take them with them.”
She pulled out a notepad and wrote down the information. “I was going to email Ginger later. Let me include the links. We should have enough time, but I want to get the order in quickly. Just to be on the safe side.”
“I also found a couple of ideas for cakes.”
He handed over the two photos. Madeline looked at them both. The first was pretty simple. Just three round layers with a few flowers scattered across the icing. There was a band of color at the bottom of each layer that could be customized.
“I didn’t know if Ginger had picked colors yet,” he said. “The cake could be made to match the decorations.”
“Pretty,” Madeline said. “Kind of big but—” She turned to the second cake and her mouth parted. “Seriously?”
“I know it’s a little larger.”
“A little?”
She turned the paper so he could see the picture. Jonny shrugged.
“It’s for my sister.”
“It’s five layers. It would feed three hundred. The guest list hasn’t hit fifty.”
“It’s a statement cake.”
He liked how the individual flowers cascaded down the sides. There was a huge spray of them on the top, and more clustered around the bottom.
“The work is all custom,” he said. “Normally you have to reserve about two years in advance, but she had a cancellation and we can get one made in time.”
“It’s huge,” Madeline said. “You know this isn’t anything like Ginger’s described. It’s massive and ornate.”