Second Time Around by Beth Kendrick Page A

why you called me?”
    “Well, I—” Brooke stopped gasping for breath. “Yes.”
    “Okay, then. Leave everything to me.” Jamie hung up the phone, whereupon Cait immediately demanded, “Brooke’s freaking out? What’s going on?”
    “Nothing a crackerjack event planner can’t handle.” Jamie tossed
10 Simple Steps
in the recycling bin and started to smile in spite of herself. “I do my best work under pressure, you know.”
    “Uh-oh.” Cait’s lips formed a perfect O. “I know that look. That look means trouble.”
    “You wound me.” Jamie snatched up the phone again, punched in numerals she knew by heart, and waited through three rings for someone to pick up. “Hey, it’s me. What are you doing right now?”
    “Ovulating,” Anna said with decidedly un-Anna-like dejection. “All by myself.”
    Jamie didn’t miss a beat. “Great. Can you ovulate and bake at the same time?”
    “Might as well be productive, even if I can’t be
re
productive. Why? What’s up?”

“Old houses mended,
Cost little less than new before they’re ended.”
    —Colley Cibber,
The Double Gallant
    B rooke could smell the cinnamon and vanilla a block away from Paradise Found. Her pace quickened as she rounded the corner on her half-mile walk from work. The first floor of the house was brightly lit and upbeat New Wave music emanated from the open windows. As she ran up the steps and opened the front door, she set aside her anxiety and indulged in a moment of nostalgia.
    She was coming home again. All of the stress and second-guessing of the past few weeks would be worth it.
    “Honey, I’m home!” Brooke called as she hung up her handbag and light twill coat on the hooks next to the door.
    All she heard in response was “Our Lips Are Sealed” by the Go-Go’s blasting out of the kitchen. When she got to the end of the hallway, she saw Anna and Jamie stationed at opposite counters with several large mixing bowls and open containers of flour, sugar, and spices on the table between them.
    “Anna!” Brooke cried. “What are you doing here? What’s all this?”
    “This”—Anna barely glanced up from the food processor—“is bakery boot camp. And I’m your commanding officer. Get in here and grab an apron.”
    “Not so fast.” Jamie stopped whisking a metal bowl full of cream and pointed upstairs. “The insurance inspector is here. I let him in hours ago; he’s gotta be almost done.”
    “How does he look?” Brooke asked. “Lenient and lackadaisical or surly and stern?”
    “Couldn’t really say. I’ve been too busy trying to appease the sugarcoated slave driver here.”
    “Less talking, more whisking,” Anna barked.
    “Sir, yes, sir.” Jamie redoubled her whipping efforts.
    “Where’s Cait?”
    “Grocery store run,” Anna said. “Your pantry is scandalously understocked. I need more milk, butter, eggs, cream of tartar—”
    “What the hell’s cream of tartar?” Jamie asked. “I’ve never even heard of that.”
    “Don’t you worry.” Anna smiled wickedly. “You’re going to find out all about cream of tartar, right around two a.m. tonight when you’re exhausted and begging for a nap and a cheeseburger.”
    “Do your worst. You’ll never break me, McCauley!”
    “I’ll be right back,” Brooke said. “Save me a sifter.”
    She dashed up to the second floor and peeked in the doorways until she located the insurance inspector in the bathroom adjoining Cait’s bedroom. “Hi! How are you? I’m Brooke Asplind.”
    A stooped, lanky man wearing scuffed olive pants and a white polo shirt was hunched over a metal clipboard. His pale blue eyes looked weary beneath the brim of his navy cap. “You the buyer?”
    “That I am.” She flashed her brightest, flirtiest smile. “Pleased to meet you, sir.” She waited for him to offer up his name along with a handshake, but he merely scratched his neck and thumbed through his paperwork.
    “Says here that you’re planning to occupy the house