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Missing the right ingredients for a life of joy, a young baker learns lessons in the true recipe for love...
Ann’s
hectic work responsibilities demand all her time and effort, and what
was once a useful, satisfactory life has become a burden to carry. Her
bakery partner Susan has lost none of her enthusiasm for their business,
and Ann can’t understand her exuberance, or her friend’s Christian
faith. So she trudges along, hiding her dissatisfaction from Susan,
resigned to a life of work, sleep and problems.
Unexpected
comments offered by two different people cause a crack in Ann’s armor
and her thoughts careen into unexpected directions. Attention from a
young widower with a son challenges Ann’s resolve to stay safe and
uninvolved. Susan’s example of faith through trial furthers Ann’s
curiosity about God. Ann must choose to step toward the unfamiliar
freedom of giving and receiving love, or stay in the shadows, stuck in
the grip of past hurts.
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EXCERPT
Copyright 2014 © Nancy Shew Bolton
Ann hoped the bakery
stayed empty of customers. She needed every bit of concentration to
decorate the cake the way she envisioned it. Her eyes scrutinized the
last patch of undecorated surface. Almost done. Shifting on the chair,
elbows planted on the low icing table, she pressed her lips together and
leaned closer. She calculated the perfect angle to hold the frosting
bag.
A
stray hair drifted into her line of vision and she blew out a quick
upward breath to deflect it. How on earth could any strand escape her
coiled braid? She should have worn the hairnet. But hairnets were
old-womanish. Still, she preferred them to the flimsy paper hats she and
Susan wore the first year they opened the bakery. They never fit well,
and exasperated her by sailing off her head when she rushed past the
ceiling fans.
The
bell on the bakery’s front door tinkled. Ann sighed and wished Susan
would return from deliveries. She glanced through the archway and out
the picture window. Maybe she’d appear. No such luck. Oh, well.
“Be
right there,” she called. Ann set down the icing bag, rose from the
chair and angled her hips to slip past the table. As she stepped
sideways, two bees zoomed in and flew toward her. She startled, brushed
both hands to scare them away and lost her balance.
In
helpless shock, her stomach fell as her forearms, palms and chin landed
on the cake and sunk in while a groan escaped her. Ann lifted her head
and stared in total horror. Loud moans erupted. “No…no, no.”
As
though a protest would change anything. Tears gathered. She drew away
from the cake, and straightened up. One little wobble, and her handiwork
was destroyed.
“Are you okay?”
Ann
stared at a tall, sturdy man in jeans and a tee shirt. He stood in the
archway between the front and back rooms and surveyed the scene. “I’d
have stayed out there, but I heard you cry out and thought I’d better
check on you.”
Ann’s
lip trembled. She pushed against the tide of emotion. No tears in front
of customers. The two bees danced on the frosting, poking around on her
ruined cake. “It’s all their fault. I tried to do everything right, and
see what happened?”
She
pointed a frosted finger at them while her tears overflowed. Through
the blur, she glanced from the excited insects over to the man. She
blinked to clear her vision. His eyes were sympathetic, and his mouth
wore a suppressed grin. He stood in a firm stance, yet appeared poised
to offer assistance. Ann searched for a clean part of her arm and
brought it up to first brush the tears, then the frosting beard off her
chin. She must look like some sort of clown.
The merriment left his face. “I’m sorry. I think maybe they flew in when I opened the door. Can I help?”
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