Aimee (A Time for Love Book 3) (20 page)

“I’ll try.”

Lucas stayed a few more minutes, and then left with orders for Aimee to contact him if anything changed. Aimee took his place beside Frank’s bed. She tried to read but couldn’t really concentrate, so she watched Frank sleep and daydreamed about what their life together might be like.

Frank stirred a couple of times without waking. Once, after he tossed restlessly for a few minutes, muttering again, he opened his eyes. He stared ahead of him as if he couldn’t see anything. Aimee moved closer.

“Frank, are you all right?”

He turned his head. “Aimee?” His eyes took a moment to focus on her, and when they did, he smiled. “Aimee.”

Aimee took his hand. “I’m here, Frank. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere, I promise.”

The smile was still on his face as he drifted back to sleep.

Aimee clutched a paper bag as she made her way up the steps of the elegant townhouse. Frank had been released from the hospital the previous day, and he was recuperating at Edwina’s. Between the bullet wound and a nasty stomach bug he’d picked up during the campaign in France, he was just now able to resume eating solid foods, and she was bringing a mini version of a celebratory meal.

“How’s he doing?” she asked when Edwina answered the door.

“Much better, dear. He’s been watching television and waiting for you.” Edwina eyed the bags in her arm. “Do you need utensils? I’ll bring them. Go on up.”

Aimee was already heading up the stairs before Edwina finished speaking. The door to the bedroom Frank was using was half-closed, and she tapped on it before pushing it open.

“Good morning,” she said.

“Morning.”

Frank was dressed in loose pants and a t-shirt, and he was sitting in the comfortable armchair beside the bed. The TV was on, but he wasn’t watching it.

“Hungry?”

Frank shrugged. “Maybe a little.”

Aimee opened the bags she’d brought and began arranging the contents on the wooden table beside the bed.

“Anyone in the mood for ice cream!”

“You remembered!”

“You’ve only mentioned it approximately five thousand times. ‘Ice cream’s my favorite treat. Oh, I can’t wait till I can eat ice cream again,’” Aimee teased in imitation of Frank’s voice.

“It’s all I could think about some days, when we were training out in the sun or sitting crouched in a foxhole where everything tasted like dirt. I’d close my eyes and picture sipping a chocolate soda or eating a banana split. Sometimes I could almost taste it. It’s been
months
since I’ve had ice cream.”

“I’ll take you out to the best ice cream parlor in town once you’re up to it,” Aimee promised. “For now, what’ll it be? I’ve got fudge ripple, orange sherbet, and strawberry. No lumps or chunks, like the doctor said.”

“All of them?” he asked hopefully.

Aimee laughed. “Why not?”

Edwina delivered bowls and spoons and then tactfully disappeared. Aimee added a small scoop of each flavor to Frank’s bowl, then shrugged and did the same for herself. Frank closed his eyes to savor his first bite of fudge ripple.

“Mmm. I thought I must’ve been remembering wrong, but no, it’s just as good as I thought.”

Aimee ate her ice cream while Frank sampled the other two flavors. Despite his enthusiasm, he could only manage a few bites. Aimee didn’t comment when he pushed his bowl away.

“I have pictures of the possible locations for my bakery,” she told him.

She had filled Frank in on her plans for the new business. She pulled out her camera to show him the pictures and described each of the sites.

“What did your friends think?”

“Lucy prefers the site near her, but Charlene thinks the shopping center is a better value.”

“Which one do
you
prefer?”

Aimee looked from one image to the other. “I’m not sure. I guess I’d hoped for something like a divine revelation, where I’d look at one of the locations and just
know
it’s the one. It didn’t happen. The spot near Lucy is fine now, but it has no room for expansion, if I’m lucky enough to need it. The shopping center location is very practical, but it’s just not inspiring. The third location is a standalone building that used to be a clothing shop. It’s near a busy road, but it would need lots of work to refit it as a food establishment.”

“Does it have to be one of these three? Maybe none of them are right.”

“Not necessarily, although on paper at least they’re the best choices. And I can’t delay if I want to buy the equipment from Joe’s bakery.”

Frank nodded thoughtfully. Aimee was glad he was taking an interest in her business plan. Over the past few days, he’d listened to all her ideas and offered the occasional suggestion.

“Why is Joe closing his business?”

Aimee explained about his wife’s arthritis and desire to move closer to their son.

“If the equipment is already there, and he’s not closing because of lack of business, why don’t you consider buying not just the equipment but the building too?”

“I’ve thought about it,” Aimee admitted. “But it’s too big. Joe used to serve sandwiches and coffee, before he scaled back to doing just baked goods.”

“Why don’t you sell something else?”

Aimee shrugged. “I don’t want to do sandwiches, and I don’t want to add on some random products. What else would I sell?”

Frank pointed to the containers on the nightstand. “Ice cream?”

“A bakery/ice cream parlor? I don’t think that would fit.”

“Why not? People eat cake and ice cream together all the time at birthday parties. You could sell them separately or together.”

Frank looked more animated than Aimee had seen him since his return, so she decided to humor him. “Like an ice cream flavor of the day, paired with a cake of the day?”

“Or anything from the bakery. You could do your mud pie with vanilla ice cream, brownies with mint chocolate chip, pound cake with apricot?”

“And if I made my own ice cream, I could incorporate the baked items
into
it. Like coconut cake or lemon ice box.”

“Or a donut sundae. I would eat that!”

“I’d need extra space for the ice cream counter and room in the kitchen for an ice cream maker,” Aimee said. “The three locations I saw this morning wouldn’t be large enough.”

“But Joe’s would?” Frank prompted.

“Maybe. I wasn’t looking at it as a prospective site, so I’d have to see it again.”

They chatted for over an hour, until Aimee could see Frank was getting tired. She said goodbye and promised to return later. When she got back to her apartment, Mandy was on the living room floor, in the midst of an impossible-looking stretch. She straightened up when she saw Aimee.

“Sorry! I’ll get out of your way.”

“No need.” Aimee smiled at the girl. “You’re paying rent too. And about that—“ she hesitated. “Do you know how long you plan to stay?”

“Is that a hint?”

“No, I’m not trying to get rid of you. Quite the opposite.” Aimee sat down on the sofa and faced the younger girl. “I’m opening my own business, if I can get a loan. Money is tight, so your half the rent really helps out.”

“In that case, I’m staying as long as you’ll have me,” Mandy told her. “I’m trying to figure out what to do with my life now that I won’t be spending it on the social circuit with the minor nobility.”

Mandy had broken her engagement to an impoverished European lord and run away from her family’s pressure to marry him. Since then she had apparently bounced from vacation to vacation with an assortment of wealthy friends.

“Great,” Aimee smiled. “Then we’d better get you a more permanent setup, like real roomies.”.

Mandy was basically living out of suitcases, with her bags stacked along the living room wall, and sleeping on the pullout couch. Aimee owed her a better setup, even if privately she doubted Mandy would be satisfied with such modest accommodations for long.

They spent the rest of the afternoon dragging a chest into the living room for Mandy’s use, and Aimee cleared out half of her closet for the other girl’s clothes. Aimee even offered her the bedroom, but Mandy preferred the couch, so she wouldn’t wake Aimee with her comings and goings, she said.

As she worked, she was mulling over Frank’s idea. Cake and ice cream. Could it work as a business? She’d have to use store-bought ice cream for now, but she could try some of the pairings. When she and Mandy finished rearranging the apartment, Aimee pulled out her notepad and began jotting down ideas for dessert combinations.

She read them to Frank when she saw him that evening. He liked her ideas and shared more of his own. She enjoyed talking to him about her life, but she wanted to hear about him too. She’d like to ask him what he planned to do after he recovered. Where he planned to live. Whether he saw them together a year from now. But the conversation was going well, and she didn’t want to risk spoiling the lighter mood that he seemed to be in.

When she stood up to leave, Frank said, “Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help. I’m just sitting here all day, and while the daytime talk shows have been very educational, I wouldn’t mind having something useful to do.”

“Any chance you’re secretly a graphics artist or an accountant?” Aimee joked.

“I’m hopeless at art, but I’m not bad with numbers.”

“Okay. I’ll bring my budget with me tomorrow and see if you can straighten it out,” Aimee told him.

“I’m looking forward to it. Good luck with the tasting,” he added as she gave him a gentle goodbye hug.

Aimee had arranged a tour of Joe’s Bakery for the next morning, followed by a taste testing at her apartment, for the three women she called her angels. When she arrived back at her apartment, she went straight to the kitchen to begin whipping up her favorite cakes and pastries in preparation. Mandy wandered in and watched while she worked. She even helped Aimee ice her chocolate layer cake and pipe filling into the cream puffs.

Their efforts were rewarded the next day when Lucy, Charlene, and Tish dropped by for a tasting party after their bakery tour. The women had seemed to like the building and its friendly owner, and they seemed equally impressed with her attempts at pastry and ice cream pairings.

“My favorite is the apple pie with cinnamon ice cream,” Lucy said. “Delicious.”

“I like the sugar-free strawberry ice cream on angel food cake,” Charlene said. “It’s so light, and I’m not completely blowing my diet.”

“I am,” Tish mumbled around a mouthful of ice cream. “But I don’t care. I love everything chocolate that you’ve made.”

“I think you’ve got a good concept here,” Charlene told her. “We’ll need to do additional market research and tweak our description of the business, but it’s just different enough to work. What’re your thoughts about the location?”

“You’ve already decided, haven’t you?” Tish said. “You like Joe’s.”

Tish was right. During their tour, Aimee looked at the bakery from a new perspective. She liked the clean lines of the building and its layout, with booths and a counter and stools that reminded her of a ’50s diner. It wouldn’t even need major remodeling. She would repaint. Add free Wi-Fi. Upgrade the coffee offerings to include cappuccinos and lattes. She could offer custom cakes and desserts and daily specials. She would need to replace the long glass cabinet with freezers for the ice cream.

“Aimee? Aimee!”

She realized Charlene was calling her name. “Sorry. Yes?”

Lucy and Charlene were both looking at her. “You’ll need a bigger loan, to cover increased expenses,” Charlene said.

“You may not be able to run it as a one-woman shop, even initially. You should think about hiring additional help,” Lucy advised.

“But if it’s what you really want, we’ll help you make it happen. The world deserves to taste this chocolate cake!” Tish finished as she licked chocolate icing from her fork.

They discussed logistics and arranged a new round of meetings. Aimee thanked them all again before they left. She was so blessed to have such a wonderful support group. Joe had also offered to help her in any way he could, and she’d already spent several afternoons at the bakery familiarizing herself with the kitchen equipment.

Part of her still wondered if she deserved all this, but the other part was simply thankful. She had the opportunity she’d always dreamed of, and she would do all she could to make sure the business succeeded.

She had Frank’s full support too. She visited him every day over the next couple of weeks and filled him in on her progress. He helped her with her revised budget and worked out a proposed supply schedule. Aimee enjoyed their time together, even if they steered away from personal topics.

“Joe’s started looking for an apartment in California,” Aimee told Frank one evening. “He says he’s so confident I’ll get the loan and buy his building, that he and his wife are already packing.”

“You should be confident too,” Frank said.

He and Aimee were sitting in what Edwina referred to as the upstairs parlor, a cozy room with a fireplace, armchairs, and a small writing table Frank was using as a desk.

“I’m trying. He doesn’t want to leave, you know.” Aimee’s face was serious. “He told me the first time I went to the bakery. He’s leaving because of his wife. He said he loves his bakery, but he loves her more.”

“Isn’t that the way a marriage should be?”

“I don’t know. It seems like there should be room for both, doing what you love and being with the person you love.”

“There was for, what, thirty or forty years? Now he’s making a sacrifice for the benefit of his wife.” Frank shrugged. “Shouldn’t he want to make her happy?”

“Yes, but not at the expense of his happiness.”

Aimee kept her voice level, but she felt strongly about the point. Neither partner should have to give up everything just to make the other one happy. Although, she had to admit, Joe was actually starting to sound excited about his upcoming move. He was planning to buy a second-hand RV and turn the drive to California into an extended sightseeing trip.