Melodies of the Heart

Chapter 17

Kassidy

The bell on the front door was chiming so often that her father threatened to snap it off, but he made the threat with a smile on his face. Kassidy barely had time to laugh at his joke. She was too busy blending more strawberries for the sweetheart cupcakes.

While she baked the cupcakes, her father made buttercream icing between breaking more moulds to be able to bake more than a couple of their new signature desserts at a time. They had only been selling them for a few days, but they could barely keep up with the demand from their customers.

"I just got five more requests for chocolate," her mother said when Kassidy brought the next batch to the front. There was a line up to the door and through the plate glass window she could see all the spots on Main Street taken up by cars.

"Dad told me someone asked for orange yesterday," Kassidy said. "And I got a couple for peanut butter."

"Make them mint!" a person in line called and Kassidy gave him a thumbs up. She was too tired to tell him that they were working on it, not that she was complaining about it though.

The last few days at her family's bakery had been a blur. Saturday was steady, and she'd taken the advice of the girls who had first gotten to try her new concoction. She'd gone over to the craft store not far from the bakery and gotten a chalk sign to announce the arrival of the new dessert and her mother had used her artistic skills to dress it up.

Word of mouth travelled fast, and by Monday there was a lineup of people looking to try the new treat. A day later, there were people waiting outside for a fresh batch of the new sweetheart cupcakes.

And it wasn't just the romantic cupcakes that were selling. People who didn't feel like waiting for a fresh batch were grabbing other items on the bakery's menu. From cupcakes to pies to Panini sandwiches, everything was selling, and everyone was raving about them. Items that had been on the menu since her parents had opened the shop were now being seen as brand new and they'd made more money in three days than they had all month.

Kassidy had more than sales to be happy about. Just as she had thought the bakery might very well be a lost cause, she'd also held out no hope for Levi wanting to go to church with her, but two days ago he'd been there. He'd held her hand through the service and she got to hear him sing the hymns, his voice better than any dessert their bakery had ever sold.

"How are these?" her father asked as he held up the new mould that he'd smashed together from two old ones.

"Perfect," she told him. It was the first time she'd seen her dad so happy in what felt like months, maybe longer, and with every spare breath he was thanking God for giving him such a smart, creative daughter.

Maybe it was the fact that her invention might have just saved the family business, or maybe it was because Levi had joined them for church, but when she mentioned going out for dinner with him that night after they closed up, both her parents only smiled and told her to have a good time.

As much as she was enjoying the rush, and would never wish for it to end, she couldn't deny how excited she was for the day to be finished. When Levi asked her about going for dinner, it wasn't Black Sheep she had in mind. There was something she'd always imagined doing with the man she loved, ever since she was a girl, and now her fantasy was going to come true.

She'd barely had the downtime to do it. The place was so busy that she hadn't found time to eat all day, but she'd managed to whip up two Paninis, both packed with grilled red peppers, goat cheese, artichokes, and left over ham that her mother had made. With it she'd included a couple rolls, a small bottle of cider, and the very first chocolate sweetheart cupcake.