You Belong With Me (Book 1 in The Love and Dessert Trilogy) Read online

  “You’re kidding me,” he said, sounding horrified.

  Layla glanced at Michael and reached out to hold his hand before she continued. “There’s a couple people out there who don’t want us to be a success. But Kit remembered some of the recipe and she researched the best ones online and then spent all day Sunday perfecting her new recipe. She was incredible Rob. Honestly, she saved us. Me and Jane can’t take any credit for it,” she said.

  Rob rubbed his hand over his chin and looked away. “Wow, that sister of yours is quite a woman, huh?”

  Layla grinned and nodded as Rob walked away, deep in thought. Michael laughed and shook his head as he grabbed a menu off the table. “He’s such a goner.”

  Layla raised an eyebrow. “He sure does send mixed signals for being a goner. He acts like he’s interested in Kit but then won’t ask her out. I don’t get him,” she said opening her menu and scanning the entrees as their waitress brought out a bread plate.

  Michael buttered a slice and handed it to her before taking his own. “Rob had it tough a few years back. He fell in love with a model up in Seattle and when his shoulder went out on him, she took off with another player on his team. Just about killed him. Rob’s a great guy, but he just doesn’t trust his instincts when it comes to women anymore. His rule is, if they’re pretty and fun, run. He’s had a boring social life lately to say the least. Working hard getting his restaurant up and going is his whole life now.”

  Layla sat back and smiled. “But now that a certain talented bread maker is in town, he’s having to re-think his dating rules, huh?”

  Michael laughed. “You said it. Hey, I feel for the guy. I had a similar rule too. I looked at you and thought one word. Trouble.”

  Layla’s mouth dropped open and she glared across the table. “I’m the farthest thing from trouble there is,” she said, affronted.

  Michael gave her a lopsided grin and sat back as he stared at her, his eyes going warm and liquid. “I beg to differ.”

  Layla blushed and rolled her eyes. The waitress came to their table and they ordered. During the next ten minutes they talked about her father and his association with Alex Foster before their food arrived. Later as they walked back to the bakery, Michael tugged on her hand bringing her to a stop.

  “What?” she asked look up into his face. He looked stunned. She looked over at what he was staring at and saw Ashley walking out of an Attorney’s office. Her parents walked beside her and they had large smiles on their faces.

  “This can’t be good,” Michael said, watching silently as they got into the luxury sedan and drove away.

  Layla frowned after the car and hugged Michael around the waist. “I hate to say this, but you need to contact your own lawyer on the off chance that she’s going after custody.”

  Michael’s face fell and a shadow of worry darkened his eyes. “I think you’re right,” he said and then walked her the rest of the way to the bakery in silence. He leaned down and kissed her. Michael gave her a half smile and touched her cheek before walking quickly away in the opposite direction toward his office.

  Layla felt the happiness of the day dim as she wondered what lay ahead for Michael and Stella if Ashley was in fact going to sue for custody. There was always a chance that she and her parents were there to go over wills and trusts, but she doubted it.

  She walked into the bakery to see Kit and Jane leaning on the counters and talking to two officers. By the way Jane’s eyes were glowing, Tate had to be one of them.

  “Hey guys. What’s going on?” she asked walking around the counter and grabbing a water bottle out of the case.

  “Hi Layla,” Tate said, turning to her and smiling his big bright friendly smile. “We’re just bringing by the recipe binder Landon took from you. Jane and Kit say all the recipes are here. Do you want to double check to make sure?”

  Layla nodded and took the binder over to a table to look through while Jane and Kit flirted. The bakery was totally empty and she frowned darkly at the half full cases. They better have a big rush before six or they were in trouble today.

  She flipped through the recipes and noticed that while the recipes were all there, some of them seemed slightly different. The paper on some of the recipes was bright white instead of the faded, yellowish color of Belinda’s old recipes too. She looked more closely at the recipes and saw a few things that caught her eye. Some of the amounts seemed off. She noticed them on the recipes she made herself but she wasn’t sure on Jane’s or Kit’s.

  “Hey Jane, can I see your lap top real quick?” Layla asked, slipping one of the newer looking recipes out of the plastic sleeve. A few minutes later, Jane brought over the laptop and looked at her quizzically.

  “I checked the number of recipes and it’s the same Layla,” Jane said with a smile and a shake of her head as if she were being silly.

  Tate and Kit walked over and looked over her shoulder. Layla pulled up the recipe for Jane’s chocolate cupcakes and frowned between the two recipes. They were different.

  “The salt amounts are off and so is the baking powder,” Layla said, pointing to the scanned copy and the newer one she was holding. “Look, the color of the paper doesn’t match the originals. Someone took the recipes, changed them and then printed them out on new paper,” she said, feeling anger at her father for stooping so low in order to make sure they fail.

  “Are you sure Layla?” Tate asked, picking up the binder and flipping through the recipes in order to see the differences in color between the recipes.

  Kit leaned over Layla’s shoulder, all traces of smiling and laughter gone as she stared between the recipes. “They’re subtle changes but it’s just enough that a whole batch of cupcakes wouldn’t turn out.”

  Layla nodded and looked up at Tate. “I’m sure Tate. Someone stole the binder and changed the recipes. They worked fast too considering that we just found out yesterday that Landon stole them from us.”

  Jane shivered. “Alex Foster helped him. I’d bet you anything.”

  Tate raised an eyebrow and sighed. “Could you go through and just mark down all the recipes that were changed so I can put it in the report?”

  Layla nodded and had Jane and Kit side by side while they went through everything. Layla did her recipes first so she could help customers who came in. Tate and his partner waved at her before leaving as she rung up their last customer for the day. Kit turned the sign to CLOSED and leaned tiredly up against the door, looking sad and lost.

  “Will it ever stop do you think?” she asked softly.

  Layla nodded firmly. “It will as soon as they realize that we mean business. If we can get proof that Alex Foster is influencing Landon or that he’s involved in this sabotage, then we’ll have some clout. Until then, he’ll keep coming after us. Sneaky little jerk,” she added venomously.

  Jane picked up the binder and walked toward the kitchen. “I’m putting this in a garbage bag and putting it up on a high shelf in the pantry. We don’t need it anymore and it might be laced with cyanide or something,” she said, with a raised eyebrow before disappearing.

  Kit grimaced and massaged her back. Layla smiled and leaned against the counter tiredly. “By the way, Rob is even more in love with our bread. He had a big shot food critic come in yesterday who wouldn’t stop complimenting Rob on the sour dough. He says if he gets a good review because of us he’s going to throw us a party,” she said, grinning as the sparkle immediately returned full force to her sister’s eyes.

  “I would love that,” Kit breathed out before squealing and jumping up and down.

  Layla laughed and hugged her sister when she calmed down. “I have to admit that I bragged about you a little too. I probably let slip the part where someone steals all of our recipes and that you spend all day Sunday being the Hero and how you singlehandedly created the best recipe for sourdough this world has ever seen.”

  Kit’s eyes went big and she bit her lip. “Oh Layla, he’ll think I made you say all that.”

 
Layla looked at her crazy. “Kit, we’re not in Jr. High. Of course he didn’t think that. But he did look stunned. He just sort of mumbled and walked off without even saying good bye. Michael told me Rob swore off beautiful women a couple years ago. I think you have him re-thinking his rules.”

  Kit’s face slowly turned bright and happy. “He’s running, but he can’t hide,” she said softly and then turned and walking out of the room.

  Layla grinned and then finished sweeping and wiping down the counters. She transferred the left over croissants, cookies and muffins to a tray and carried them to the kitchen. She’d looked up the nearest battered women’s shelter and had already let the director know she’d be bringing their extra food over. She loaded up the car and waved bye to her sisters.

  After she got back from the shelter she spent the rest of the day relaxing and straightening up the house before calling Michael. It was nine o’clock and she knew Stella had to be in bed by then. She yawned wide, feeling her jaw crack just as Michael picked up and knew she had to get to bed too.

  “Hi there,” Michael said, sounding happy to hear from her.

  Layla smiled, feeling the same thing. “I just wanted to check on you and see if you’re okay.”

  Michael paused and she heard the sound of dishes clattering against each other and she knew he was in the kitchen cleaning up. “I’m okay. I went in to see my lawyer this afternoon. You might know him. Roger Paulsen? Anyways, he says I have nothing to worry about. But there’s no way I’m taking chances. I’ve put him on the clock. He’s having his investigator look up her old roommates and friends so we can have the character witnesses we need if it comes to that. I got the divorce based on abandonment. That won’t look good to any judge. But if she can prove mental cruelty and mental abuse, she’ll have a chance.”

  Layla frowned as she rubbed her forehead. She’d seen a lot of messy court cases with parents fighting for custody. They could be brutal and the truth could be bent in every direction possible.

  “Don’t be surprised if she does. I just hope Stella doesn’t have to be involved in the process.”

  Michael made a growling sound in his throat, obviously hating even the thought of that happening. “Over my dead body.”

  Layla winced and let it go. “Do you think Ashley’s just going through the steps in order to have some kind of leverage over you?”

  Michael sighed. “It’s possible. There’s no telling with her. The sad thing is, I know it’s her parents behind it. She doesn’t care about custody. She doesn’t want to be a full time mother to Stella.”

  Layla nodded silently. She’d seen many grandparents come in at the last second and save children from going into foster care. She’d also seen them make a lot of trouble and get in the way of children being adopted into good caring stable homes.

  “Michael, what will you do if the judge grants Ashley joint custody?” she said, wincing, but knowing that she needed to bring it up so he was prepared for all the possibilities.

  Michael made a huffing sound. “I’ll appeal until I can’t appeal anymore. I won’t have my daughter being raised by someone who doesn’t love her.”

  Layla lay back on her bed and crossed her ankles. “I totally understand honey, but Father’s rights don’t have the same punch in family courts as mother’s rights. It’s just a fact. But on the plus side, the State of Washington is one of the more liberal states as far as Father’s rights and add in the fact of Ashley’s complete lack of involvement in Stella’s life you’ve got yourself a really good chance,” she said, smiling as Michael made a loud whooping sound.

  “I knew there was a reason I loved you. Because you tell me everything I want to hear,” he said blissfully.

  Layla laughed and wished him good night, hanging up just as he was shouting that he loved her. She laughed at the phone and then went to get ready for bed. Tomorrow was a new day, and she wanted to be prepared for whatever life threw at her.

  Chapter 22 – Surprises

  Layla waited until after the bakery was closed the next day to start investigating her grandmother’s will and why she’d left their father out of it. Michael called just as she was pulling a box marked Belinda on the side off a shelf in their small storage room behind the kitchen. She promised to stop by later for dessert and hung up.

  She glanced through a few boxes before she came to a box of folders marked with her father’s name. She took out one of the folders and glanced through it quickly. Court papers from when her father was a teenager. He’d been in and out of juvenile court since the time he was fourteen it looked like. The charges ranged from petty theft to possession of marijuana. She frowned as she saw the typical trend in delinquency. The crimes started out so small and just kept escalating every year.

  She picked up the next folder and saw this one contained information on her father in the military. Layla smiled sadly as she saw her father had been given an ultimatum. Jail or join the army. He’d chosen the Army. She glanced through the pictures and the letter written home to his mother. He’d changed and been a different man when he was clean from drugs she noticed. That must have been when he’d met their mom. There was a picture of Landon standing with a bunch of his Army buddies in front of a barracks. He looked so happy, and nice and good. The Army had been a good choice for him.

  She picked up the next file and it had skipped ahead about eight years. She looked through the other folders, but nothing to fill in the blank dates. The file she had laid aside contained new court documents. Her father had fallen back into drugs, being arrested for possession with the intent to sell.

  She stacked the folders and went looking for more information. The missing years were the years of their mother’s marriage to Landon. The years when they’d been a family. She went quickly through the boxes and came across letters from Belinda’s lawyer, but she would come back to those later. She put the boxes back and walked back into the small family room. She walked over to the book shelves she had largely ignored and scanned through the books. The top two shelves contained novels and self-help books. But the lower two shelves contained what looked like picture albums. Ta da!

  Layla sat on the couch and picked the oldest book to begin with. Her grandmother’s child hood pictures. She grinned as she saw picture of her grandmother as a little girl, teenager and young married woman. She went to the next album and looked at the pictures of her grandmother holding a smiling little blond boy on her lap. They both looked so happy and loving. What could have happened? She noticed there weren’t many pictures of her grandfather in the photo book. The few pictures he was in, he wasn’t smiling and Belinda and her father looked stiff, less happy somehow. Hmmm, interesting.

  She went to the next album and saw a whole page of pictures of Landon and his mother standing by the grave marker of his father. Gone was the happy, carefree smile. Belinda looked serious, but not heartbroken. It was interesting what you can read from the emotions of a picture. Her father just looked emotionless.

  The next photo album was spotty. It looked like pictures had been taken out. Some of the pictures looked like he was young, eleven or twelve years old. On another page, he had to be at least fifteen. And then page after page of her father in his Army Uniform. She bit her lip and looked at the second to the last photo album. Finally! She sighed in pleasure. She opened the pages and saw pictures of her mom in a wedding dress and her father in his dress uniform. She frowned as she realized that at some point her mother had taken down every picture and hidden away every sign that their father had ever existed. Probably why she hadn’t recognized him immediately when he’d sat down by her at the park. She felt sad as she looked at the pictures of her parents in the year before her birth. No one looking at these pictures would ever believe that the happy, beaming man would one day wake up, walk out and never return.

  She turned the next page and saw a picture of herself as a newborn baby. She didn’t even notice when she had to reach up and wipe a tear away. Her grandmother had so many pictures of
her. She paused, her eyes wide as she saw a picture of her being held by her grandmother. In the picture her grandmother was smiling and beaming as she had done when she’d been holding her father as a young boy. Layla took in a shaky breath and turned the pages to see pictures of Kit, from new born up through what must have been pre-school. Layla frowned as she turned the page. There were no pictures of Jane. Had her mom blocked out their grandmother in her anger at their father?

  She skimmed through the rest of the blank pages and frowned. She turned and looked at the very last photo album and pulled it over. She opened it and saw a picture of her graduating from high school. It had been taken at a far distance so it was kind of fuzzy, but it was her accepting her diploma with a big happy grin on her face. She turned and saw there was one more picture of her at her college graduation. There were a few articles about her when her name had come up in court cases, but that was it. The next few pages were taken up with Kit and Jane. The very last one was of the three sisters at their mother’s funeral, standing silently by the casket in black dresses and looking devastated. Why hadn’t Belinda contacted them?

  Layla closed her eyes and held the photo album to her chest feeling pain and anger and a huge sense of loss at never having known a woman who had obviously loved her. She put the photo album down and glanced at her watch. She would have to hurry to get to Michael’s in time for dessert. She set all the albums on the couch for her sister’s to find and go through if they wanted to.

  Layla drove her car over to Michaels and hurried up the steps to the front porch. Before she could even knock though, Stella was ripping the door open and jumping up and down.

  “Layla! We made you a super yummy dessert. Daddy says I’ll have to work in your bakery when I get older,” she said grinning proudly.