Part 4
The register drawer lay open when Mara arrived. Vanessa stood behind it with the count sheet in one hand. Her friend was at a front table, and two customers had turned toward the counter.
“Come here,” Vanessa said.
Mara put down her bag.
“Your total was correct last night?”
“I checked it twice.”
“Then you can tell me where the missing cash went.”
Mara looked into the drawer, then back at her.
“What missing cash?”
“You were responsible for the count.”
“For counting it. I didn’t take any of it.”
Julian came out of the kitchen.
“She left you a balanced count,” he said.
Vanessa didn’t look at him. “This is between Mara and me.”
“You’re making an accusation in front of the whole room.”
“Money is gone.”
“Which doesn’t prove she took it.”
Mara held out her hand for the sheet. Vanessa kept it.
“I wrote down exactly what was there,” Mara said. “You know I’m no thief.”
“Somebody did.”
“Then find out who. Don’t use my name because it’s convenient.”
Vanessa’s face hardened.
“Take your apron off.”
Mara’s fingers went still against the counter.
“I haven’t done anything.”
“I don’t keep thieves on staff.”
“Show me proof,” Julian said.
Vanessa pointed toward the door. “She’s finished here.”
Mara untied the apron slowly. She folded it once, although the strings wouldn’t stay tucked inside.
“You’re firing me over something you haven’t proved.”
“Leave.”
Julian untied his own apron.
Vanessa turned toward him. “Don’t be absurd. You’re not involved.”
“I am now. I quit.”
Mara looked up. “You don’t have to do that.”
He put his apron beside hers.
“I’m leaving with you.”
Vanessa moved around the counter. “Julian, wait. We can discuss this.”
He held the door for Mara.
Outside, she walked to the edge of the building before stopping. A delivery van passed, and she waited for its engine to fade.
“I didn’t take her money.”
“I know.”
She looked at him carefully, as if she needed to hear it without the noise from inside.
“I believe you, Mara.”
Her face crumpled for an instant. She turned away and pressed her knuckles beneath her nose.
“That paycheck was everything. Rent, electricity. I can’t just miss a month while I look around.”
He stood beside her, leaving room between them.
“I’ll find another bakery,” she said. “Somebody will need help.”
“What if you didn’t have to go back to working for somebody else?”
She gave a short, incredulous breath. “My bank account would like a word with you.”
“Your ability didn’t stay inside when we left.”
“I know how to bake. I don’t know how to make a business appear.”
“Then we’ll work out where to begin.”
She looked at him.
“We?”
He nodded.
Inside Velune, Vanessa’s friend waited until the other customers had gone before standing.
“What did you expect to happen?”
“I expected him to have some sense.”
“He doesn’t need this job.”
“He’ll come back.”
“For what? He walked out because of her.”
Vanessa gathered the aprons and pushed them beneath the counter.
“I’m not handing him over to Mara.”
“You can’t hand over somebody who was never yours.”
“Whose friend are you?”
“Yours. Which is why I’m telling you that you humiliated her and sent him straight after her.”
“She stole.”
Her friend looked at the count sheet, then toward the door.
“Keep telling yourself that’s what this was about.”
Julian came home early enough that Lenora put down the papers she’d been reading.
“What happened?”
He told her about the register, Mara’s dismissal, and the way she’d stood outside trying to calculate how long she could keep her apartment.
“She didn’t do it,” he said.
“I believe that.”
“I want to help her open the bakery.”
Lenora sat back. “Open one for her?”
“Yes.”
“A month ago, every conversation we had was about when you would take over the company.”
He looked at the polished floor between his shoes.
“I know.”
“Now you’re here worrying about someone else’s rent.”
“She deserves a chance.”
Lenora let him sit with that for a moment.
“Does she know who you are?”
“No.”
“Then explain how a man who’s just quit a bakery job pays for a bakery.”
“I can tell her I saved money from my office work.”
“That’s another lie, Julian.”
He didn’t answer.
“Be certain about why you’re doing this. Do you want her happy, or grateful enough to love you?”
His head came up.
“I don’t want to purchase a place in her life. If she never chooses me, I still want her to have this.”
Lenora reached across and touched his hand.
“Then don’t forget that she gets to choose.”
He called about a vacant storefront on Brindle Street that afternoon. A bakery had closed there several months earlier, and much of its equipment remained.
The agent let him in through a door that stuck slightly at the bottom. Flour still whitened a groove beside the old mixing station. Sunlight fell through broad front windows onto an empty display case.
Julian walked into the kitchen first.
“The owner is ready to lease,” the agent said. “The equipment can stay as part of the arrangement.”
He checked the ovens, the sinks, the space between the worktables.
“This is right for her.”
Julian smiled despite the day he’d had when the agent asked whether she was his wife.
“Not yet. And we won’t be keeping the old business name. She’ll choose her own.”
The agent opened a folder on the counter. “I’ll need a name for the initial lease, though.”
“Use mine until she’s ready. Then we’ll arrange an assignment.”
“Quite a surprise, Mr. Ashford.”
“I’d appreciate it staying one.”
Mara spent the next morning baking in her apartment. Cooling racks filled the small table, and a cake tin occupied the only clear section of counter.
“At least I can’t be dismissed from this kitchen,” she muttered as she turned out another batch.
Julian called while she was washing a bowl.
“Can I come over?”
“Only if you’ll eat some of this. I’ve run out of places to put it.”
He arrived to find her opening a window above the sink. The room smelled of vanilla and toasted sugar.
He took a bite of a little cake and stopped talking.
“Well?” she asked.
“People should be paying for these.”
“I’d welcome that development.”
He tried a pastry next, then leaned against the counter while she moved another tray.
“Tell me what you’d choose for your place. Not the practical version. Yours.”
She dusted crumbs into her palm.
“Big windows. Pale pink, but not so much it looks like a nursery. Flowers. And nobody should feel they have to be dressed up to come inside.”
“What would go over the door?”
She hesitated.
“I’ve been playing with something. Maravelle.”
He repeated it quietly.
“You hate it.”
“I’m trying to picture the sign.”
“I want it warm,” she said. “Somewhere a person can come in on a bad day and stay awhile.”
When Julian met the decorator at the empty shop, he brought those details with him. Pale pink beneath the windows. Fresh flowers. Chairs that invited people to sit rather than pose.
Over the next several days, he checked the work between calls about the lease, the equipment, and the approvals needed to reopen. The space was already fitted for a bakery; most of what it needed was cleaning, paint, and care.
The last evening, the decorator switched on the front lights and stepped aside.
Julian stood beneath the new sign, then walked through to the kitchen.
“Ready?” she asked.
He ran a hand along the clean edge of a worktable.
“She can see it tomorrow…”
To read the rest of the story – CLICK the NEXT button 👇👇👇