Heart's Desire by Catherine Lanigan Page A

baking. If she had a helper, she could get her own baking done between five and seven, have a normal dinner, maybe even with friends, and be in bed by nine. It was doable.
    She looked out the small kitchen window and realized the sun had just broken the dawn. It was another day. A new day.
    That meant she had another twenty-four hours during which she would wrestle with herself over the problem of what to do about Nate.
    Blunt self-honesty told her that the real reason she pushed herself so hard was that if she was working ninety to nothing, then she didn’t have to think about Nate. And right now, the last thing she wanted was to be reminded that she had Nate Barzonni’s cell number in her phone. And she still had not called him.
    Since Easter Sunday, when she’d delivered her much-gossiped-about punch to his stomach, her one constant thought was that until she picked up the phone and called him, she would not have her answers.
    Oh, she had tried.
    With her hand shaking, she’d picked up the phone a dozen times to place the call. She’d chickened out every single time.
    Though she’d rehearsed what she would say to him, she kept changing her mind. Her conversation with Sarah on Easter Sunday had replayed so many times in her brain, the tape had been stripped of all meaning, until she didn’t know what was conjecture and what was real.
    The bottom line was that she would never know the truth until she talked to Nate. Her decision now was whether she wanted to do that at all.
    She was terrified that Sarah had been right. If it was true that she had pushed Nate away, that he hadn’t abandoned her as she had told herself he had for eleven years, then she had based her entire adult existence on a self-inflicted lie.
    “Self-inflicted” was the operative key.
    She had to face the fact that the Maddie she had chosen to believe she was wasn’t the real Maddie at all. Maddie had been holding a self-sabotaging pity party for herself since high school, and she had blamed Nate’s abandonment on her family and social status. Deep down, she hadn’t thought she was good enough.
    Maddie longed for a new start . In Chicago? With Alex?
    Thinking about Alex, Maddie realized all too clearly that while she did want to be successful, mostly she wanted a life filled with joy and friends and good times. Maddie couldn’t help wondering what her life would have been like if she had faced up to her participation in her breakup with Nate back when they were seventeen. Would she have left Indian Lake? Would he have had to leave the way he did, surrounded in mystery and secrets?
    Maddie added the eggs and flavoring to the sugar and butter, then slowly folded in the sifted dry ingredients.
    She placed colorful paper cupcake holders in greased muffin tins, then measured the batter into each holder. She placed the first batch of cupcakes into the oven and set the timer.
    Maddie went to her office and checked the phone for messages.
    “Hi, Maddie. Jake here from New Buffalo. Say, we had a killer crowd this weekend already. So, I’m going to ramp up our standing order. I’m going to need three dozen cupcakes on a daily basis. Then eight dozen for Saturday and Sunday. Sorry, I mean sixteen dozen for the weekends. Let’s see how that works out. Give me half chocolates of various kinds. Your choice. Then lots of lemon and strawberry. Nothing healthy. Surprise me. They all sell, so it doesn’t matter. If there’s a problem, give a ring. Ciao.”
    “Are you kidding me?” Maddie smiled as she scratched notes into her order binder. The next message came on. “I’m trying to reach Maddie Strong of Cupcakes and Coffee Café. This is Mia at Alex Perkins’s office. I’m calling to confirm your appointment with Alex on Tuesday with both Alex and Mr. Stapleton. Alex told me to tell you that he expects the meeting will take about three hours and he is looking forward to seeing you. He will call you personally as well.”
    She hit the recorder