Cal had all of the bread dough rising and had started building the pastries when he heard the back door open and close.
Natalya had driven away before he’d even finished the morning rounds. He liked the daily ritual of preparing the bakery. Starting the first pot of coffee. Firing up the glass-doored ovens that his father had installed in his father’s bakery, which lit off with a low wump of gas. One of these days he was going to put in a wood-fired oven, but it would require a complete renovation to fit it in, maybe even knock out a wall and he wasn’t ready to face that.
While the coffee brewed, he had circled out to the front of the house. Here the steel kitchen with its thick rubber mats on red tile flooring gave way to worn oak hardwood that dated back to when his third-great grandfa
