Page 53 of 40 and (No Longer) Fighting It
“Well, I was too busy to notice her rummaging in the kitchen. When she showed up an hour later with a little tray of cookies, I assumed she’d used one of the mixes included with the toy.” Lanelle chuckled. “Not my Claire. She’d gotten herself a bowl and spoon, eggs and milk, and had figured out a cookie recipe from whatever we had in the cabinets. Not that I realized it at the time. I just patted her on the head and said, ‘That’s nice, hon,’ and shooed her away.”
She paused for long enough that Linc found himself asking, “What happened?”
Lanelle’s gaze met his, and despite the smile on her face, tears misted her eyes. “Next thing I knew, a couple of hours had passed and there was no sign of Claire. So I wandered back to her room to check on her, but she wasn’t there. Wasn’t in the kitchen or the backyard. So I went out the front. And there she was, on the sidewalk in front of our house, with her little plastic table and chair from her room and a plate of cookies, passing them out to anyone who went by. And I don’t mean tiny Easy-Bake Oven cookies; no, these were perfect cookies fit for a bakery.” She shook her head, the remembered wonder of that moment plain for Linc to see.
“That doesn’t surprise me in the least,” he said, chuckling.
Lanelle stared at him, looking deep as if searching for something. He wasn’t sure what, and he wasn’t sure if she found it, but either way, she nodded. And then her mouth tightened. “Just as I came out onto the front porch, one of the neighbor boys came over. Always a troublemaker, Peter was. Always pushing around the other kids. Peter had seen Claire outside, and even though she was giving the cookies away, not selling them, and even though she offered him one, Peter wasn’t satisfied. No, he wanted the whole plate. And he took it. Claire tried to fight him off, but she was half his size and no match for a stubborn kid like that. Or so I thought.
“I don’t know why, but I didn’t move. I watched the neighbor boy walk away with a plate of cookies, and I watched Claire cry for a moment. But just as I was about to go to her, Claire started wiping away her tears. She had this look she got when she was determined to do something—the mule look, I called it, because my husband said she looked like a stubborn…well, you know.” Lanelle gave him a sheepish look. “But anyway, she got that look on her face, and I knew something was coming.”
Linc knew it was too. Whatever Lanelle was about to share, this was why she’d come. To tell him whatever this was about his Claire.
“Claire didn’t come searching for her mama to lament what Peter had done. She didn’t try to get help. Not my Claire. No, she left her table and chair and marched across the street to the boy’s house. Strode right up to the door and knocked like she was ten feet tall instead of a little slip of a thing.” Lanelle shook her head. “When Peter’s mama answered the door, I saw Claire put her little fist on her hip”—she demonstrated—“and tell that woman in no uncertain terms what Peter had done. Next thing I know, the woman was hauling his butt out to make an apology and hand over Claire’s plate. And by the look on her face, a whooping was coming in short order.
“Claire brought the plate home, walked right past me and back to her room, and went back to her Easy-Bake Oven. An hour later she was back outside, giving cookies away.”
Lanelle smiled wistfully. “She never did need me to fight her battles for her. Not when she was little, and not when she left Jared.” She looked down at her hands in her lap. “And maybe I resented that. The boys, they needed me, but not Claire. She didn’t need me yesterday either.” She met Linc’s gaze again. “I watched her just like I did all those years ago with Peter. I saw what she’d created. Oh, I’ve been in the bakery a dozen times, but I never really looked at it. Never really saw what she had created because I had a role in mind for her and I couldn’t see beyond that, beyond my own nose. I couldn’t miss it yesterday. I couldn’t miss how she stood up for herself either. She handled all them reporters like she’d been battling them her entire life, poised and confident. She didn’t let herself back down from that fight any more than she did Peter. And she didn’t need me or you or anyone to fight that battle for her.
“The thing is, all this time her family has been battling with her—Ihave been battling with her—notforher. And even though I didn’t want to admit it, I saw how much it hurt her.” Lanelle reached out and took his hand, startling him. “Claire can fight her own battles, I know that, but I also think she needs to know that the people she lets in are willing to fight alongside her.”
“I did,” Linc told her. “I am.” This time it was his turn to drop his eyes. “I don’t think it was enough, though.”
When he didn’t say more, Lanelle squeezed his hand before sitting back.
In for a penny… “Claire told me that after everything with her family”—he wouldn’t sayyou—“she didn’t know if she could fight the world to be with me.” No, she hadn’t put it that way, but that was how he’d taken it, hadn’t he?
“Maybe she needs to know she’s not going to have to face that fight on her own,” Lanelle suggested.
“How could she not know I’d do anything to protect her?”
“I’m afraid I’ve had my own hand in that,” Lanelle admitted. “To my shame, I let my own prejudices blind me to loving my daughter. Yesterday showed me that. And it is something I’ll pay for, for the rest of my life. It may not be something I can fix, but that doesn’t mean you can’t.”
Lanelle stood. “Right now Claire feels like it’s her against the world. And that’s a fight you can’t protect her from. You can’t take it away—it’s already out there. But you can fight beside her. And if she doesn’t already know that deep, deep down, if life—and I—have taught her not to trust that the people she loves will fight with her rather than against her, if she’s still unsure after the things you said yesterday in her defense, then maybe you need to prove it to her in such a profound way that she can no longer deny it. And you.”
Twenty-Three
Claire’s fears about the effects of the newspaper article on Gimme Sugar had slowly dissipated as Monday passed. It seemed as if the entire town had shown up to express support for “their” baker. And that support had extended into Tuesday morning, which had kept her and her two new assistants busy. She should have been ecstatic. Sure, maybe the wide world outside of Black Wolf’s Bluff believed she had only earned her place under Lincoln Young by being, well,underLincoln Young, but here, in her town, they knew her skill and fully backed her and her bakery.
Too bad Lincoln hadn’t shown equal support.
That’s not fair, Claire. You asked for time.
Which was true. She shouldn’t be upset that Lincoln was giving her exactly what she’d asked for. Except she hadn’t expected that he would disappear completely.
And he had.
Whatever positivity she’d managed to hang on to took a nosedive when the door to the bakery opened around nine. Lanelle crossed the room to the register, her gaze seeming curious as she scanned the space. Cookies and cupcakes, specialty cakes to celebrate every occasion, small gift items from local artisans that Claire loved featuring all dotted the room, and all seemed to take her mother’s attention as she walked the few feet to where Claire was standing.
“Good morning, Mama.”
Warm brown eyes met hers. “Good morning, love.”
The endearment hit her like an arrow to the heart. She hadn’t heard that word on her mother’s lips in so long. Since her divorce had pushed her onto a different path than her family approved of.
What had brought it back?
She had no doubt that her family had been at the groundbreaking ceremony. She’d even caught a glimpse of her youngest brother’s wife at one point. She’d been bracing herself for the moment her family decided to say,I told you so.
