Page 4 of Sweet and Salty

I stay there just inside the paddock, singing verse after verse in my terrible alto-soprano, freezing my bums off despite the layers of down and wool. Time stands still. It’s just me and her and the memory of Ma on this cold, windy, foggy morning. “It will be all right, hon, ” I whisper to her between verses. “I know it’s bad now, but things will always get better. I’ll be here for you. ”

The donkey snorts, the color slowly returning to her eyes. She tosses her head one way then the other, as if to see if JoelHostetler was anywhere in sight. But Rory knows how I work. Joel will be long gone by now.

Halfway through, right when I’m beginning to forget the actual words Ma used and inserting my own half-sensible ones, the donkey moves toward me on halting hooves. She stops about two feet away, too far to reach with the halter.

So I meet her halfway.

“Maybe Rory is right.” I sing the words softly, keeping the tune since that’s what brought her over here. With intrepid slowness, I take one step toward her, then another. She never takes her gaze off me, but I’m not going to push. She lets me near her flank and allows me to stroke through the matted hair. Definitely a donkey. First order of business once she’s home will be food. Second will be a bath. “Maybe I should break up with Chris.”

The donkey tilts her head with an almost-forgotten imperiousness, like she had once been proud and still remembers that part of herself. We could bring it back. Trust might be as fragile as an icicle, but I’m good at playing the long game.

“I guess you’re with Rory.” I slowly stroke my hand from her flank to her neck, humming the entire time. “Want to come home with me? You can help me keep an eye on those darned pigs. Edward’s the troublemaker. You can keep him in line.”

She doesn’t move, doesn’t blink, but there’s a spark in her eye, like she hears and understands. This is a crafty lady deserving of respect.

“All right then.” Slowly, I pull the rope halter up and over her head and fix a lead line to the bottom O-ring. “I think I might call you Lucretia Borgia, smart girl. What do you say to that?”

She says nothing, for obvious reasons, but she follows me to my trailer anyway.

CHAPTER THREE

Two Months Later

Laura

“But it’s been weeks,”I protest, speaking into my headphones. I finish piping the concentric circles of kransekake, a stacked Scandinavian celebration dessert, onto my silicone mats. Even the scent of almond and powdered sugar can’t relieve my anxiety. “Dr. Gustavson, Cree barely eats. She hides in corners of the paddock. I’ve done everything I know to soothe skittish animals, and nothing is working.”

On the other end of the call, our only local vet, Dr. Gustavson, a man who’s eighty-four if a day, sighs loudly. “I don’t know what to tell you, Laura. You’ve got a knack with creatures, always have, and you taking in strays is a good thing. I hate to tell you this, but some beasts can’t be broken.”

I hate that phrase. My fingers grip the edges of the baking sheet too tightly. Any more and all my hard work over the last half hour will be in sticky globs on the floor. Closing my eyes, I focus on my breath. This is what I get for agreeing to make a last-minute birthday cake for my mom’s employer.

“I’m going to keep trying. I won’t give up on Lucretia Borgia.”

Dr. Gustavson chuckles softly. “Have you thought it might be that name you gave her? Why not give her something jolly, something light? No one ever went wrong with a Lulu or Maybelle. Lucretia Borgia might as well be a yoke around her neck.”

Spoken like a true octogenarian. Next I’ll get some diatribe on why I need more fiber in my diet. I’m not in the mood for any of it.

“No one thought the real Lucretia Borgia would amount to anything, since she was the illegitimate daughter of a pope,” I say, forcing myself to loosen my hold on my baking sheets as I carry them to the oven. “But she was a strong, powerful woman who didn’t tolerate nonsense and reigned at court in her own right. I think it’s a great name for my donkey.” Or stubborn ass, as I thought of her last night when I went out to try to commune with her and ended up on my butt in the mud. Three times.

“I’m just saying, Laura. You need to recognize a lost cause when you see one.”

“I’ll be just fine. Have a great day, Dr. Gustavson. I’ll see you Saturday morning for your sticky bun and latte.”

“Fine,” he grumbles. “But don’t use that sugar-free syrup, no matter what my wife tells you.”

“Sure thing.” I hang up and set the timer on my phone for the kransekake bake. I’d far rather deal with Dr. Gustavson’s wrath than his wife’s, and he doesn’t seem to notice the difference either way.

The yawn catches me by surprise. I need to be home, dealing with the aftermath of Chris’s departure—I mean honestly, how is a mobile escape room in rural Wisconsin going to get him out of his rut—and trying to get Lucretia Borgia to trust me. But no. I have to be here, in my bakery on my one day off, making this darn kransekake for my mom’s employer’s birthday.

I shouldn’t begrudge it, I know that. It isn’t a five-tiered wedding cake, like the one Daisy Gustavson commissioned for her wedding. A kransekake is made of rings stacked into a tree-like shape and festooned with ribbons of royal icing. I can make it in my sleep.

It’s more that nothing seems to be going my way lately. I might end up burning the layers and then I’ll have to start all over. Again. I haven’t burned a bake in…heck, I’ve never burned a single one.

I can blame the donkey, or I can blame the Drydens on the town council, who denied my application for a liquor license for the café. No steaming hot toddies or cool citrusy cocktails with your meal.

No one knows about that yet, and I intend to keep it a secret for as long as humanly possible. The whole thing stings far more than it should. Maybe because it all happened simultaneously–Chris leaving, the denial letter. I’m now staring down the next half of my life alone and without the prospect of growth on the horizon.

All this bitterness makes me crave something sweet, and despite living in an altar to the glories of sugar, the one thing I want is the one thing I don’t have. A lollipop, cherry-red and filled with bubblegum. A taste of childhood.

---