Winning the Baker's Heart

Chapter 4

Rey sketched as the car wound up the mountain he'd gotten to work to help with the morning pastries. Thomas and Kyle had been less fanatical about making everything ready. There wasn't a morning rush on the weekend so it wasn't as crazy.

Not that Rey didn't know about crazy. His college life had been insane. He had to have eight designs a week, and those accumulated throughout the two years he was in school. He had another notebook at home filled with cake and cookie designs. There were some cupcakes dispersed throughout, but it was mostly filled with cakes.

They'd dropped off the first three orders. The quinceanera cupcakes and cake were a hit. The daughter had been excited to see the pink and powdered blue design she'd wanted. It had looked like cotton candy fluff atop the cupcakes when it had only been buttercream frosting.

The second and third ones had been a baby's first birthday and a fiftieth anniversary respectively. The parents had loved the race track cake Thomas had created as well as the smash cake with the little car design. Kyle's gold and white anniversary cake matched the golden anniversary theme. The topper was intricate and dainty. Only Thomas could make something that in depth. He had the steadier hand out of the three of them.

They drove into Heber Springs and headed towards one of the resorts. It was their first wedding cake delivery of the day, and they were ahead of schedule.

"After we drop this off," Kyle said," we'll stop a Sonic or something for lunch."

Rey glanced at him briefly. "That's fine with me. I am getting a bit hungry."

The driver glanced over while the road was clear. "Are you designing a new cake or just playing around?"

"A bit of both. I'm sketching the design then I'll color it in when I get home. I don't usually have the time to do it at work since we're so busy. It also lets me reconnect and destress."

"You seem like the least stressful person at work. What do you have to stress over?"

"I'm bipolar with acute anxiety, ADHD, and clinical depression. Some days it's a struggle just to get out of bed."

Kyle stopped at a red light and looked at Rey. He was back to sketching, his hand moving jerkily across the paper. His golden hair was tied back from his face, but Kyle could see his green eyes following the movement of his hand.

He seemed to not want to discuss his illness so Kyle respected it. He didn't even think to guess the young man had a mental illness because he didn't show any signs. Then again, he had never known someone with bipolar disorder. His cousin had ADHD, but no one else he knew had anything more. Maybe he was just uneducated.

He continued to the conference center where the wedding was taking place. The wedding planner helped bring everything in and showed them where to set up.

They stacked the cakes and finished the decorations so the seams didn't show. Rey pulled the topper from the box, brushed it with extra edible paint so the imperfections from transport were fixed, and stuck it in the top layer.

Once they cleaned up, Kyle went to the nearest drive thru and got them some lunch. Rey did the delivery paperwork and stashed it away so they could file it when they returned to Daluca's Pass.

The next delivery wasn't scheduled for another hour and a half. It was in Conway which was almost an hour away. Kyle called the wedding coordinator to see if an early delivery was possible. Given the green light as soon as the words left his mouth, they were headed to Conway.

"If the people who place the order are getting married so far away," Rey said, "why not have them pick it up the day before?"

"These cakes were ordered before I hired you. They were set for delivery because we weren't sure when they'd get done. Now, we can adjust for pick-up since we have three people who can work on the orders," Kyle explained. "These customers were people I met while in culinary school or grew up with in Fayetteville."