A Tangle of Knots by Lisa Graff Read Free Book Online

ONLY EVER DREAMED THAT THIS DAY WOULD COME —the seventh and final day of her trial period with a new family. But here she was, one week in with Toby. And everything was going swimmingly. Well, maybe not swimmingly, but . . . fine. Far from grand, but not horrible, either.
    Truth be told, Toby didn’t talk much. Reserved, Miss Mallory would have called him—like a table at a fancy restaurant where only a select few could sit and chat. And that made it difficult to get to know him, to figure out what might make their new little family go from fine to magnificent. But Cady had a secret weapon. That very morning, while Toby was off on his airport run, Cady had baked him a yellow cake with chocolate frosting. She wasn’t entirely sure if it was Toby’s perfect cake, but it was worth a try. She could smell it now, sweet and luscious and minutes from ready, as she searched for wildflowers between the Emporium’s cracked porch slats.
    The good news was that Miss Mallory had not yet come to retrieve Cady from her new home, as she’d done with all of Cady’s previous trial families. And if Cady could hang on just a few hours more, then that very night, at the Fifty-Third Sunshine Bakers of America Annual Cake Bakeoff, Miss Mallory would officially declare whether or not Cady and Toby were a perfect match for each other. Whether Cady could finally have her own Adoption Day party and bake her own cake.
    It was a big day indeed, and not just because it was the first time Cady had ever managed to use both of her guest tickets for the bakeoff. Cady tried to soothe the ache she felt in her chest, dull and worrying, whenever she thought too hard about leaving Miss Mallory and the orphanage for good. A worrying ache seemed a small price to pay for a perfect family.
    As Cady plucked a yellow dandelion from a mess of weeds outside the Emporium’s front door, Mrs. Asher’s dusty red hatchback pulled to a stop in the driveway (the only car there beside the Owner’s). Cady raced to greet her.
    “Hello, there, sweetie,” Mrs. Asher said, tucking the red whatever-it-was that she’d been knitting under one arm. She gave Cady a quick hug and hurried to the other side of the car to open the passenger’s door. “Cady, this is V.” Cady took a long look at the woman sitting in the passenger’s seat, staring through the windshield at the Emporium. She was a mystery fudge cake, Cady was sure of it—a circular chocolate cake with a gooey chocolate center hidden inside it. “She doesn’t talk. Take this bag, will you? Thanks.”
    “Do you need help getting her settled?” Cady asked, taking the bag of groceries Mrs. Asher handed her.
    “I think we’ll be okay,” Mrs. Asher said. “You wouldn’t happen to know where my children are, would you?”
    “Marigold’s practicing oboe”—Cady flicked an elbow toward an upstairs window, from which faint, stilted notes of music had been puttering for the last several minutes—“but I don’t know about Zane and Will.”
    “Well, at least I can count on one of my children to do what she’s supposed to.” Mrs. Asher tugged a duffel bag out of the backseat. “You haven’t seen my hairpin, by any chance?”
    “Your hairpin?” Cady asked, finally realizing what it was about Mrs. Asher that seemed so different this morning. With her brown curls strewn wildly about her face, instead of tightly up in a bun the way they’d been all week, Mrs. Asher somehow looked a decade older. (Although perhaps, Cady thought, that had more to do with the whole moving-to-a-lost-luggage-store-with-three-children-while-her-husband-found-a-summer-job-in-New-Jersey-to-pay-for-the-repairs-to-their-apartment-from-a-rogue-hot-air-balloon-attack situation.) “I haven’t seen it,” Cady told her. “Sorry.”
    “I’ve never misplaced the thing. Not once in eleven years. But I guess with all the commotion this week I must’ve . . .” She sniffed the air. “Are you baking a cake?” Cady nodded. “It