Spoonful of Christmas Read online

  And if Jake couldn’t help, he’d find her himself, because he was through putting up with the Tobys of this world. Just like he was through with bad foster parents who took the money meant to supply him with food and clothes and used it to buy lottery tickets. Once he found his mom, everything would be great. He’d never be in foster care ever again.

  Later that night, Max returned from a scavenger trek around town to find Jake on his doorstep, speaking with Garth Gilmore, his current foster care provider. No way! What was he doing here? When he talked with Jake earlier, he didn’t tell him his last name or where he lived.

  He dove behind the bushes next to the front steps before anyone could see him.

  “My wife isn’t here right now,” Garth said cheerfully. “She must have run to the store to buy some groceries.”

  Yeah, right, Max thought. Paula had moved out a month before, and their refrigerator had remained bare ever since.

  “So you and your wife live together?” Jake asked. “You aren’t getting a divorce?”

  “No, no divorce. Did Max tell you that?” Garth laughed as if amused. “Max Holloway is very disturbed. We treat Max like gold, but he lies, steals, cheats. Seems like we’re always pulling him out of some kind of trouble.”

  Max clenched his drumstick, wishing he could beat it on something. After this, Jake would never treat him like a friend, never invite him to jam with him at the music store, never buy him anything else to eat.

  “Maybe I can help,” Jake told Garth. “I’m part-owner of Creative Cupcakes, and my wife is gathering donated gifts from local businesses to distribute to foster kids this weekend. Can I put Max’s name on the list?”

  “Go ahead,” Garth said, “and when you publish your article about me, remember to spell my last name with an e on the end. Oh, and make sure you include my quote about how hard we work as foster parents and how we only want what’s best for the child.”

  “I will,” Jake promised and snapped his notepad shut.

  The sound made Max jump, and Jake turned his head. He saw him. But to his surprise, Jake didn’t rat him out. Instead, he gave a final nod to Garth, got in his shiny blue Mazda Miata, and drove away.

  Max slumped against the wall of the house and squeezed his eyes shut. Jake wouldn’t come back. He had his news story, his fancy car, his merry little family . . . and a holly-jolly cupcake shop decked out for Christmas with lights, bows, tinsel, cranberries, and popcorn strings.

  What would he want with him?

  SATURDAY AFTERNOON ANDI stacked the brightly colored wrapped packages in the back party room for Mike to load into the Cupcake Mobile and argued with the next-door neighbor.

  “Guy,” she pleaded. “I’m not asking to pull your other tooth out. All I want is a donation for the foster kids.”

  The tattoo artist grinned in response, revealing his missing left canine. “Pulling a tooth would be easier for me than turning into Santa. At least I’d have a matched pair.”

  “Do you want to be naughty or nice?” she demanded. “How would you feel if you were a kid and didn’t get a gift on Christmas?”

  Guy scowled. “There’s been many times when I didn’t.”

  “So you do know how it feels,” Andi said, her hands on her hips. “The Pig ’N’ Pancake, Maritime Museum, Coastguard, the Captain’s Port, and Safeway grocery have all donated.”

  “So what do you need me to give up my hard-earned money for?” he protested.

  Rachel brought another gift in to add to the pile. “A kiss under the mistletoe might soften him up.”

  “I’m too old for mistletoe,” Guy hissed.

  Rachel’s mom, Sarah, also carried in a gift. “Guess what, Andi? I got a loan to open a bridal shop.”

  “Congratulations!” Andi said. “You’ve done a wonderful job sewing all our dresses.”

  The glow on Sarah’s face lit her eyes. “Watching you three girls go after your dream to open a cupcake shop inspired me to go after my own dream.”

  Andi thought of Jake’s job offer in Washington and how badly he wanted it. “Yes,” she said and swallowed hard. “Everyone should have the opportunity to pursue a dream.”

  “People can’t just pursue their dreams,” Rachel amended. “They need to fight for them. And Astoria is known as the ‘home of the fighting fishermen.’ ”

  “But you’re not fishermen; you’re cupcake shop owners,” Guy reminded her.

  Rachel shrugged. “Does it matter?”

  “You have inspired me, too, Guy,” Sarah told him. “I admire the way you left the space here in the back room and expanded your business in the building next door.”

  Guy grinned. “You were inspired by me?”

  “I was just telling Guy how he should be inspired to donate gifts for the foster children,” Andi said, giving Sarah a wink.

  “Oh, that’s a wonderful idea,” Sarah agreed. “You will donate a few gifts, won’t you, Guy?”

  Guy looked at Sarah, and his grin turned into a full-fledged smile. “Okay, I’ll do it for the kids.”

  When Andi returned to the front of the shop, Rachel introduced her cousin. “This is Stacey McIntyre from Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Andi said, shaking her hand. “Rachel tells me you’re willing to work while you’re here for the wedding.”

  The young woman wore one red sock and one green. Andi tried not to stare at her feet, but couldn’t help herself—and Stacey noticed.

  “When I woke up this morning, I couldn’t find a match,” Stacey explained.

  “That’s okay,” Andi assured her. “Your socks are a perfect match for our red aprons and the green bandanas we wear over our hair.”

  Rachel opened the Cupcake Diary and read off their latest plans. “Today we started our ‘Twelve Days of Christmas’ theme. We’re serving pear cupcakes topped with a tiny partridge made of multicolored piped icing. Tomorrow we serve twin turtle doves on our eggnog-flavored cupcakes. On the third day—”

  “Three French hens?” Stacey asked with a giggle.

  “You got it,” Andi said, nodding. “On the fourth day we serve up cupcakes with plastic bird whistles for ‘four calling birds,’ and on the fifth day we decorate the cupcakes with five golden rings.”

  “Five!” Kim called out. “I can’t even get one!”

  Andi looked across the room to the table where her sister was creating a Santa sleigh and reindeer out of cupcakes. She’d used red string licorice for the reins, pretzels for antlers, and a red gumdrop for Rudolph’s nose.

  “I didn’t know you wanted Nathaniel to propose,” she said, glancing at Rachel to see if she knew.

  Rachel shook her head, her mouth open in surprise.

  “I thought for sure he’d propose when he took me to the Flavel House two nights ago for plum pudding,” Kim said, poking another reindeer cupcake with a chocolate chip nose. “You know I did research on Swedish traditions, and when someone finds an almond in a special rice porridge, it’s supposed to mean they’ll get married in the coming year. I figured plum pudding was kind of like rice porridge, but did I get an almond? No! No almond. No proposal. Nothing.”

  Andi gasped at her sister’s unaccustomed show of emotion. “Do you want me to give him a hint?”

  Kim shook her head. “Don’t you dare!”

  Andi would have liked to learn more about this new development, but the phone rang, and she was the closest one to answer it. “Hello, Creative Cupcakes.”

  She hoped the caller on the other end might be Jake, but it was that dreaded businessman Preston Pennyworth again.

  “I’m willing to make you a new offer,” he informed her. “I’ll tack on another two hundred and fifty thousand.”

  “One point four five million bucks?” Andi glanced at the wood hutch in the dining area where they had placed all the cupcake-shaped gifts their loyal customers had brought in to give to them: candles, cards, piggy banks, picture frames, salt-and-pepper shakers, plates, bowls, and candy. She let out
a low whistle. “That’s a lot of money. I’ll have to think about it.”

  “When will you know?” he persisted.

  “Well, I’ll have to talk it over with my partners.”

  “Can you do it tonight?”

  She looked around the shop, filled with customers coming in and out, employees running back and forth, the gifts for the foster kids stacked and ready to go. “No, I’m busy.”

  “Then when can I expect an answer?”

  Mia ran past her with a stocking that had glitter flying off onto the floor.

  Andi placed her hand over the phone’s mouthpiece. “Mia, look what you’re doing!”

  Mia held up the stocking, and Andi read the name she’d written on it with glue and gold glitter. Max.

  “You made a stocking for your imaginary friend?” Andi asked, shaking her head.

  “He’s real, Mom!” Mia argued.

  “Andi, did you hear what I said?”

  Mr. Pennyworth’s voice drew her attention back to the phone. “Yes, I heard you.”

  “I need an answer within the next three days. I want to give Creative Cupcakes to my daughter for Christmas.”

  Give Creative Cupcakes away as a Christmas gift? The company she’d worked her sweet bum off to make a success? This was her dream, her inspiration, and she wasn’t about to just let it go to the likes of him.

  “You know what? I don’t have to wait another minute. You want an answer? The answer is no.”

  As she hung up the phone, Rachel asked, “Who was that?”

  Guilt shot through Andi as she realized she’d made another rash decision without consulting her lifelong pals. But her answer to the guy would have been the same.

  “Phone solicitor,” she replied.

  Rachel scowled. “They’re always asking for money around the holidays.”

  “Just like you’re asking for donated gifts?” Ian Lockwell teased, carrying an armload of presents. “These were donated by our division for the foster kids. Where do you want them?”

  Andi pointed to the party room. “Mike’s loading up the Cupcake Mobile tonight so we can deliver the gifts first thing in the morning.”

  “Hope you lock the truck up tight,” Ian warned. “There’s always a lot of theft this time of year.”

  “Don’t worry,” Andi said, giving him a big smile. “We’ve got the best locks on our truck and our shop doors, we now have an indoor and an outdoor security camera, and I’ve set up a neighborhood watch. I’m not going to let anyone steal away our Christmas!”

  ANDI ROSE AT the crack of dawn and rushed to the grocery store for some extra food coloring, candy canes, sugar sprinkles, and cinnamon red-hots. Next, she rushed to the post office to mail her Christmas cards, only to remember it was Sunday, and the post office wasn’t open. Then she rushed to the variety shop on the corner to pick up a few last-minute gifts to add to the ones in the Cupcake Mobile.

  She was beginning to see why Guy thought Christmas was the season of stress with all the shopping, buying, wrapping, decorating, baking, not enough time in the day, rush, rush, rush. To add to the craziness, someone backed into her in the parking lot and dented her car. How cliché.

  She and the other driver exchanged phone numbers and insurance information, but the experience took her out of her “Joy to the World” mood.

  “Merry Christmas!” Andi muttered under her breath, as her car’s assailant drove away.

  Beside her, Mia put her hands together in a clap—clap, clap, clap—clap rhythm and chanted, “Who let the Grinch out? Who! Who!”

  Andi recognized the tune, although the words had been changed. “Are you implying I sound like a Grinch?”

  Mia nodded, and Andi resolved to change her attitude. If she and Jake decided to move, she didn’t want to remember this Christmas in a negative way. No, she wanted to hear the “resounding joy” as the children opened their packages and see the look of wonder on their angelic faces.

  However, “angelic” would not be the word she’d use to describe the expressions of Mike, Rachel, Stacey, Jake, and Kim when she drove up to the Cupcake Mobile. They were all there.

  But the gifts were not.

  Chapter Seven

  * * *

  Christmas is a time when you get homesick—even when you’re home.

  —Carol Nelson

  “HOW COULD THE gifts be stolen?” Andi demanded, circling the truck. “How did they break in?”

  “Through the passenger side window,” Mike pointed. “Whoever did this smashed the glass to smithereens.”

  Rachel handed her a piece of paper. “Look what he left.”

  “ ‘Compliments of the Grinch,’ ” Andi read. She spun around and glanced at the big, green, hairy Grinch cartoon painted on the front of their shop window. “He must have got the ‘Grinch’ idea from us! Kim, why didn’t you wash that off?”

  “People like it, and besides, whoever vandalized the shop and stole the gifts is probably the same person.”

  “A person who thinks he’s funny,” Rachel said with a frown and glanced at Stacey.

  Stacey’s eyes widened at the silent accusation, but she didn’t say a word. Instead, she crossed her arms over her chest and bit her lip.

  “Did the security camera pick anything up?” Andi asked.

  Mike shook his head. “The camera we installed outside the shop faces the front of the building, not the street.”

  “What about Guy?” Andi looked at each of their faces. “Did you ask if he saw anything? Or if any of the other local business owners noticed anything odd?”

  “No,” Kim told her. “No one saw anything.”

  The full impact of the situation hit Andi with brute force, and she suddenly felt sick. “What are we going to do? I can’t let all those kids down.”

  Jake closed the open doors on the back of the Cupcake Mobile. “We can start collecting new presents.”

  “Ask everyone to donate again? How can I guarantee they’ll be delivered?” Andi thought of all those poor foster kids without a gift on Christmas day, and she ran and threw up in the bushes.

  This was all her fault. She’d been too confident when telling Ian that no thief would be able to steal from them. Why, anyone who had overheard her would have considered it an open invitation.

  I’m not going to let anyone steal away our Christmas!

  Mia was right. All this holiday craziness was turning her into a Grinch. But only if she let it.

  She drew in a deep breath, straightened, and returned to the group. “Somehow we’ve got to get gifts to the foster kids by Christmas.”

  Mia looked up at her with those big blue eyes and asked, “There’s still hope?”

  Andi wiped a stray tear away, gave into a quick smile, and nodded. “Yes. There’s always hope. Meantime, we’ll put out a reward—a dozen peppermint hot chocolate cupcakes to whoever helps us catch the Grinch.”

  MONDAY MORNING, RACHEL arranged for their employees to watch over the shop while she, Andi, and Kim tried on dresses for the final fitting.

  “We tried them on last week, and they were fine, Mom,” Rachel said with a smile. “But you know how I like looking at myself in the mirror.”

  “ ‘Cinderella’ is conceited,” Kim teased.

  Rachel laughed. “Yeah, but you know it’s true. Just wait until you get married someday.”

  Kim pressed her lips together. “Yeah, can’t wait.”

  Rachel slid the mass of white satin and lace over her head, but when she looked in the mirror, her eyes were drawn to something dark smudged on the skirt of her dress. She sucked in her breath. “What’s that?”

  “What?” Sarah asked with a frown.

  “I do look like Cinderella, and not in a good way! What is that on my gown?”

  Andi bent down to take a peek, and when she rose, her face had paled, and her eyes warned of trouble. “Rachel—”

  “Andi, what is it?”

  “Cranberry walnut cupcake with creamy dark fudge.”

&n
bsp; Rachel gasped as she picked up the material and drew it closer. “How did cupcake get on my gown?”

  “It’s on my gown, too,” Andi told her, “and Kim’s.”

  “This is a disaster!” Rachel shouted. “The most important day of my life, and our dresses are soiled by cupcakes?”

  She shot a look at her mother. “It must be Stacey. Ever since she arrived, there’s been trouble. First the gifts were stolen out of the truck, now this.”

  “You can’t blame your cousin,” Sarah scolded. “It could have been your grandfather. You know how he loves cupcakes.”

  “And Stacey wasn’t here when the cupcake shop was vandalized,” Kim reminded her.

  “This could still be her doing,” Rachel protested.

  Sarah threw her hands up in the air. “It was your idea to have a party here this weekend to try to raise money to buy new gifts for the foster kids. You know we have a tiny house. You should have had the party at the cupcake shop.”

  “It was a spur-of-the-moment event, and you shouldn’t have had the wedding gowns hanging on the rack in the hallway.”

  “Are you blaming me for this?”

  Rachel burst into tears and threw her arms around her mother’s neck. “No, I’m so sorry, Mom. I didn’t mean it. But—look at me! The wedding is next week. Can we clean the dresses in time?”

  Sarah looked as if she were trying not to cry. “I’ll do my best. I just hope it doesn’t stain.”

  KIM TOOK HER paints and brushes up the hill to Astor Elementary, where Mia and Taylor went to school. The cartoon murals on the side of the building had been originally painted by local artists for the filming of the movie Kindergarten Cop starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Today, she’d promised the woman in charge of its upkeep that she’d refresh the paint before more snow moved into the area.

  When she rounded the corner, she discovered a boy of about eleven or twelve on a ladder painting over the brown spots on the bright, yellow giraffe.

  “Looks good,” Kim said, admiring his work. “You must be Max Holloway.”