Read Always the Baker, Finally the Bride for Free Online Page B

and Fee pressed a hand to her shoulder, nudging her toward the front door. Sherilyn waddled past her and took the front porch steps with caution as Emma pressed the security code into the keypad next to the door. “—you know,” she continued as she and Fee followed Sherilyn, “I just thought there might be another cake that is more representative of our whole relationship, you know?”
    “You’ve got shotgun,” Fee told her as they parted at the rear bumper of the Explorer. “Let Sherilyn sit in the back so she can put her feet up.”
    “Feet!” Sherilyn exclaimed. “They’re nothing but big waterlogged stumps at the ends of my calves.”
    “Anything you need for the drive back?” Emma asked her.
    “I don’t know,” Sherilyn began, rolling her eyes upward as she twisted her red hair into an elastic band. “Maybe some water. But then that might mean we’ll have to stop in a fewminutes. Maybe a snack instead. What do you think, Em? What snack is most representative of a pregnant woman whose best friend is plucking her last nerve?”
    Emma began to laugh.
    “Maybe a Snickers. Or wait! Some sesame sticks. Do we have any of those left? And do they really represent my full need for a snack?”
    Reaching over the back of the seat, Emma slapped at the air in front of Sherilyn. “All right. I get it. I’ll make a decision soon. I promise.”
    “Will you? Will you, really?” Sherilyn asked. “Because there’s no hurry or anything. I can always finish up these pesky wedding details from the delivery room.”
    “The cake is my thing,” Emma reminded her. “You just worry about the rest of it.”
    “Oh. Okay. I’ll do that. It’s not like it matters if everything fits together with some cohesive—”
    “Sheesh, Sher!” Emma cried. “Hormonal much?”
    “Oooookay!” Fee exclaimed. “That’s enough of that, or I’ll leave you two by the side of the road to duke it out.”
    Sherilyn growled loudly, and Emma laughed at her, pushing off her sandals and propping her feet on the dashboard as she closed her eyes.
    “Ooh, you know what I have a taste for?” Sherilyn asked them, and Emma moaned. “Remember that fudge Pearl told us about?”
    “Anton’s secret recipe?” Emma teased.
    “Yes. It sounded like heaven, didn’t it?”
    “Yes. But you heard Pearl. To get that recipe, you’ll have to,” Emma began, and Fee joined her as they completed it in stereo, “—pry it out of his cold, dead hands.”
    They all laughed, and Sherilyn began to whine, “But it sounded amazing, didn’t it? Did she say it had marshmallows in it?”
    “Marshmallow cream,” Fee corrected.
    “Ohhh,” she whimpered. “I need chocolate. Do either of you have any chocolate?”
    Emma shoved the sunglasses up the bridge of her nose and tuned her friend out, deciding instead to simply trust Fee to steer them home.
    Four hours and five bathroom stops later, Sherilyn groaned again, this time with a slight whistle to it, and she followed it up with quick, noisy puffs of frantic breathing.
    “Need another backrub?” Emma asked without turning around.
    Her indecipherable reply came through more puffs.
    “Sher?”
    When Emma twisted to peer into the back seat, Sherilyn’s wide turquoise eyes looked back at her from within a completely bunched-up face.
    “Are you all right?”
    Sherilyn shook her head with frenzied distress.
    “No?”
    She shook her head again, gripping her enormous belly with both hands.
    “Oh, Sher. No.”
    Sherilyn nodded with the same frenzy.
    “It’s time? But there’s still three weeks!”
    Sherilyn’s expression turned almost demonic, driving Emma’s immediate apology: “Okay, sorry. So we’re early.”
    Emma and Fee looked at each other for a resolution that neither of them had.
    “How far are we from home?” Fee asked.
    Emma checked out the scenery flying past them. “About twenty minutes. Sher? Can you wait twenty minutes?”
    Sherilyn replied with a defeated shrug, followed by the