Tori Lynn has one dream - to grow her sweets shop into a New York dessert landmark. She expects there to be competition, mischief, and hard work when opening up a store front. What Tori doesn't expect is to join the ranks of the nation's top bakers...
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The lights were on inside Miss Lynn's Sweets and Treats. Tori stood on the paved sidewalk of the busy street, cars' horns blaring and pedestrians shouting into their cell phones as they passed. She tried the door. It was locked.
She didn't remember leaving the lights turned on. She left in a hurry last night after making the phone call to Caiden, but she was positive that she remembered the lights. In fact, she was quite anal about leaving the lights turned on for longer than they needed to be. It was electricity that she didn't want to pay for at the end of the month.
Tori searched for the keys in her purse. Finding the lanyard at the bottom, she used the largest key to unlock the door. She pushed it open and walked into the shop, the smell of sugar and chocolate filling her senses. Did she light a candle last night? Did Chantal leave ingredients on the counter? She couldn't figure out what was happening. Maybe she was imagining things.
She locked the door behind herself and dropped the key back into her purse. Tori made her way to the kitchen, her shoes moving quietly over the floor. The small window in the kitchen door told her that the lights were on. Now Tori was confident that she wasn't crazy. She had definitely turned the kitchen lights off.
The door gave way with a push of Tori's hand. It opened to reveal Chantal in her pink apron, standing at the counter over a two-layered cake.
"What are you doing here so early?" Tori's voice echoed through the room.
Chantal flinched, as if her friend had frightened her. "What does it look like I'm doing? I'm decorating a cake." She said, without looking up.
Tori moved to stand beside Chantal. The cake smelled like chocolate and was topped with Tiffany-blue fondant. The fondant work was smooth and conceise, its edges blended nicely at the bottom of the cake. A row of white and pink flowers topped a sheet of wax paper at the other end of the counter, along with a bowl of edible silver pearls.
"And why are you decorating a cake so early?"
"I'm practicing. How can I be your partner if I haven't done any actual work in months? I'm a little rusty, but I think it's coming together." Chantal grabbed a flower from the wax paper and placed it at the bottom of the cake. She continued grabbing each one and placing them around the bottom.
"Did you make those flowers with fondant?" Tori said, eyeing the details of the flowers. The petals were thin, and looked like they had been painted. The ombre effect went from white around the edges, to a pastel pink at the middle, and then a darker fushia around the center. "I didn't think you could get it that thin without breaking it. That's amazing, Chantal."
