Cupcakes and Kisses (Hot in Magnolia Book 1)

“Pop, I need help. Can you send Eli over?”

“Is Humphrey tied up to the neighbor’s Chihuahua again?” he asked.

“No, Pop. It’s my back.”

“I’m on my way.”

“No way. Your back is worse than mine! Look, I’m okay, but I tweaked it and it—oh, I’ll save you the details, but long story short, I’m fine. I just need Eli to come help. Door’s open, just tell him to come on in.”

After a few more minutes of assuring her father that she was fine, and that all she needed was a hand, she hung up. It took ten minutes for Eli to make it from her father’s café to her home. In that time, she wiggled a tank dress over her head and shimmied it down her sausage-wrapped figure so that her brother couldn’t poke fun at her Spanks when he arrived.

Eli was five years her junior and still acted twelve sometimes. He’d applauded and cheered her when she’d lost the bulk of the weight she’d battled all her life. Melvina wanted to be thin, like the pictures of her mother, who she resembled.

Images of Rayna Louise Banks were sprinkled within the many photo frames of her father’s house. Her mother had been a Miss Magnolia Blossom in 1976, the year she married Salvatore Elijah Banks. Melvina’s memories of her mother consisted mostly of her waving goodbye as Rayna Louise drove away to an audition—plays, TV commercials, even the ballet once, though Rayna had had no formal training in dance.

Meanwhile, it was Mona’s mom who’d helped Melvina learn to print her name, make a construction paper turkey at Thanksgiving, and introduced her to the world of baking cupcakes. The sugary treats made them all happier after the sticky glue of Rayna’s empty promises washed away.

She’d made her exit just a few years after Eli’s birth. Not happy in the role of a housewife, Rayna was bored. The shimmer of first love wore off after Melvina’s birth, and from what others said, Eli was an attempt to patch up the marriage. Pop was too busy trying to make ends meet to notice Rayna’s depression pooling into movie star aspirations. He’d worked under the café’s previous owner for many years before buying the greasy spoon.

Without a job, Rayna watched too many soap operas and read too many romance novels to be happy breast feeding and changing dirty diapers. As soon as she’d lost the baby weight and had squirreled away enough grocery money to buy a one-way ticket out of there, Rayna was on the first Greyhound to California, or at least that’s what the scribbled note had said.

For a long time after her mother’s departure, they were a sad bunch. To make her father happy, Melvina perfected the art of baking. Her love of cookies and cakes helped pack on the pounds during puberty. Unfortunately, it also made her a wallflower at every dance and awkward with boys. No one ever asked her to Homecoming or Prom. On the other hand, no one ever picked on Melvina, because she baked cupcakes for the class on a regular basis. Her gift for baking, coupled with her being the smartest and funniest girl in school, helped her through those difficult teenage years.

But it was hard to be overweight when your mother was an infamous beauty. In the absence of Rayna, Mona and her mother had always been there. Melvina had learned to cope with life through mixing, baking, icing and putting sprinkles on top.

After two years at Jen’s Jazzercise with dual enrollment at Jim’s Gym, located in a souped-up, air-conditioned metal building next to the Cowboy Baptist Church, Melvina had shed enough pounds to gain a few open-mouthed stares and whistles of appreciation, but she mostly equated the stares to shock. She had shed half her body weight and transformed her plus-size frame into a curvy, hourglass shape of a more confident woman.

The extra pounds had been hard to lose and harder still to keep off. Along the way, close friends were always quick to remind her what a beautiful face she had. Mona had even sent Melvina’s picture to a modeling agency for large ladies without telling her. Melvina didn’t talk to her best friend for a month after the very awkward phone call from the agency. She didn’t need affirmation that she was pretty enough to grace the pages of a magazine like her mother, she just wanted to be a healthy weight.

Owning her own bakery was the real catalyst for getting her life together. All the sweat she’d poured out on the elliptical machine, all the grunting she’d emitted during sessions with her trainer, and all the sighs she breathed out over the delectable desserts she’d resisted were all for her benefit and not to impress others.

As for relationships—her ideal man would appreciate her no matter what size she wore, and support her dream no matter how challenging.

At forty, she was tired of running Pop’s Café and wanted a legacy of her own. Her inspiration for her recent weight loss had been kick-started by a series of videos she’d watched over and over again. The narrator in “Take Charge of Your Future” and “Become a Better You” convinced her that she first had to control her body before she could control her success. She was still in charge of all the baked goods at Pop’s, but she had learned to control her impulse to sample every batch. The recipes she used were ingrained in her memory, and she assured herself that her loaves of pumpernickel, wheat, and rye tasted exquisite whether she sampled them or not. The customers coming in daily were testimony to that. Her new view on dieting had led to an abundance of sugar-free, gluten-free, and other healthy treats that were making Pop’s Café eternally busy.

“What in the world?” Eli’s usually smooth Texas drawl came out an octave higher with unsuppressed surprise. “Melvina Rayanne Banks, what have you done to your room?”

She hated when her brother used her full name. It was bad enough to be named after her Grandpa Melvin, but the Rayanne was just a sore reminder of the mother who used to call her by her middle name.

“Dang, Mel, don’t you ever clean around here?”

She lifted her arm from the pile of clothes like a red mailbox flag. “Don’t even get me started, Eli,” she snorted with a mixture of laughter and agitation. “If I tinkle myself after all I’ve been through this afternoon, I will not make your favorite gluten-free brownies for a month.”

She doubted her brother was gluten intolerant, but as she had packed on the pounds after her mother’s abandonment, Eli had become an exercise and health food junky. His fit body was drooled over by most of the Magnolia ladies. This year gluten was evil, and she could already see that sugar was soon to be on the chopping block when he could convince himself to actually live without it. Melvina had survived the fat-free craze, the calorie-counting phase, and now the gluten-free world of Eli. Her talent for whipping up delicious treats that were low calorie, low fat, and low carb was what made her everyone’s favorite baked-goods gal.

“Geez, Mel, looks like your closet exploded. Are you havin’ trouble deciding what to wear?” The earnest concern in her brother’s voice melted her heart. He had been her personal cheerleader her entire life, and certainly through her battle of the bulge. Eli never missed an opportunity to tell her she was beautiful, even before she’d lost the weight. He was a peach and she could never stay mad at him for long. Bending down, he wrapped his arms around her from behind and gently helped her to her feet, dusting off a piece of lint from her shoulder when he set her from him.

Melvina sighed with relief, placing her manicured nails on her lower back for added support. “I gained back five pounds after bake sale week,” she said with a sigh. “Maybe I should have gotten all my workouts in and I wouldn’t have had this unfortunate incident.” She gave a stalwart nod, more to comfort herself than Eli. “It’s just a minor setback, and I will lose these pesky five pounds this month.”

He nodded, reassuringly. “You’ll do it, Mel. I have faith in you.”

“At least I figured out what to wear while I was sprawled on the floor.” She smiled.

“You’re beautiful Mel. Please don’t wear that gunnysack you reserve for special occasions. It’s time you let the Magnolia Blossoms see the real you.”

“Eli, that is the only thing that looks good on me right now and I’m already late,” she said as she stepped around him and hurried to the bathroom to grab the ibuprofen from the medicine cabinet. She winced as she walked, keeping her hands firmly on her lower back.

When she returned, Eli held up an emerald green evening gown. Its silky material and simple cut whispered elegance.

“That’s not mine.” She paused, fingering the silk strap. “It’s Rayna’s.” They hadn’t called their mother “Mom” since she’d walked out on them all those years ago.

“It doesn’t matter who it belonged to. It would look beautiful on you.”

“It’s not my size.”

“Then why do you have it?” Eli arched a brow.

“I don’t know. It was in my closet when I left home, and I suppose I packed it up by mistake. Look, I don’t have time for this trip down memory lane, and I’m not in the mood for a therapy session either. Not tonight.”

Eli shook his head in disbelief as he sifted through the pile of clothes on the floor. “Well, how about this one?” He held up a burgundy cocktail dress. It had a tight bodice and mermaid cut skirt.

Melvina’s cheeks heated.

He had to go and find that one at the bottom of the pile.

She’d bought it last week for the dinner and it’d thrilled her when she’d tried it on. Sparkle Babble had the best choices for eveningwear in the county, and Mona had talked her into buying the slinky designer dress. But when she’d tried it on again last night, she just couldn’t muster the guts to wear the body-hugging dress. It was meant for some swank actress hitting the red carpet, not her and her extra five pounds.

Not with all those eyes staring at me.

“Melvina, if you don’t wear this pretty dress, I will personally follow you to the dinner and tell the fire chief he has started a fire in your pants.”

Melvina grabbed the dress and glared at him. “Ha, ha. Do you know just how corny you are?” Without another protest, she went back into the bathroom and slammed the door. She didn’t have time to reason. She was late and if she didn’t hurry, she would miss seeing Riley Nash.