Sweet Stuff

by Donna Kauffman

  He’d noted the signs in the window of Laura Jo’s diner that Wi-Fi was available, and the GO GREEN! flyer encouraging islanders to attend the meeting at the community center on proposed steps to keep the island environmentally friendly. And another announcing the upcoming annual fall festival coming in October, complete with a variety of carnival races and contests anyone could enter, and a pie-eating competition. So, progressive, yet protective of their more traditional, if not old-fashioned Southern sensibilities and way of life.

  He shifted over to the other series of small photos, framed and mounted in a mosaic pattern on the other side of the door, tucked into the narrow strip of wall between the doorframe and the big display window. Some were in color, some black and white, but they were all current, he thought. All were scenes taken from various points on the island outside the immediate town square. There were some from the docks, which he recognized, but most were dunes, sand, beaches, or marshes. He had similar prints in his bungalow, though most were somewhat larger. There were small ones, too, tucked into alcoves and used as accent pieces on various walls here and there throughout the place. Riley had had some on her houseboat as well. A local artist, he thought.

  He slid his hands into his back pockets and rocked slightly on his heels as he let the photographs’ natural beauty draw him in. The photographer had captured the serenity and the wildness. He could actually hear the waves, and feel the breeze that moved the dune grasses, smell the salt and brine in the air.

  While the town photos had captured the people, the community, these captured the uniqueness of Sugarberry. For all that it was simply another small Southern town in so many ways, it was also an island community, with all the distinctive elements that set it apart from any other town or place.

  “They’re good, aren’t they?”

  Quinn glanced over his shoulder to find a pretty brunette standing behind him ... sporting an Alice in Wonderland apron. He smiled and turned. “Yes, they are. Hello, you must be Leilani Dunne. Your cupcakes are incredible.” He put out his hand. “Quinn Brannigan.”

  “Thank you!” She took his hand in a firm, quick shake. “Yes, Mr. Brannigan, I know who you are. Though may I say that while the photo of you on your books is quite good, you’re a great deal more ... charismatic, in person.”

  His smile deepened. “Very kind of you.” He nodded toward her apron. “I noticed Miss Alva’s apron, too. I like the whimsy. Suits the place.”

  She beamed, maybe flushed just a bit pink. “Thank you. I’ve collected them since I was little. It’s been fun to have someplace to trot them all out.”

  She lifted up a tray with cubed pieces of cake arranged on it. A brown-flecked cake with melted caramel oozing out from the center. “I’m working on new recipes for the fall festival. These are my reverse caramel apple in spiced cake, with the caramel on the inside. Care to try a bite and give me an honest opinion?”

  “I think I’m sold just looking at them, but certainly.” He took one of the toothpicks, pierced a cubed piece, and cradled his free hand under it to catch any of the drizzling caramel.

  “Still warm, but okay to bite into,” Lani said.

  He popped it in his mouth and immediately closed his eyes as the flavors of apple, cinnamon, nutmeg, and creamy caramel burst and melted on his tongue at the same time. He groaned, just a little.

  Lani laughed. “Okay. I think that’s all the opinion I need. These go on the DEFINITELY CONSIDERING IT list.”

  All Quinn could do was nod.

  Lani started to turn away, but not before Quinn shot her a fast grin and speared one more piece. She laughed and carried the sampler tray over to the counter.

  After another moment spent contemplating how one bite of anything could be so decadently delicious, he said, “Would you happen to know who the photographer is who took the beach scene photos? I think I have some by the same person in my bungalow.”

  “I do,” Lani said, then lifted the handled bag sitting by the register.

  “Good. I’m interested in buying some prints.” He pointed to the bag. “That’s for Riley. Uh, Miss Brown. Towels and a shirt I borrowed after Brutus and I did a little dance on the docks. All laundered and clean.”

  Lani laughed. “We heard about that. Brutus really is just a big lump of love.”

  “So I keep hearing,” Quinn said with a smile. “Will you make sure she gets that? She said it was okay to drop it off here. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all, I’d be happy to, but you can just give it to her yourself.”

  “Oh, that’s not—”

  Lani inclined her head in a nod toward the front of the store. “She’s coming in the door, as we speak.”

  Quinn, still standing in front of the door, turned just as Riley passed by the big front display window. “Right.”

  “You can talk to her about the prints, too.”

  Quinn glanced back at Lani. “She knows the photographer?”

  Lani smiled as she bumped the swinging door to the kitchen open with her hip. “She is the photographer.”

  Chapter 7

  Riley pulled the shop door open and stepped inside just as Lani was pushing through the swinging door to go back to the kitchen. “Hey,” she called, and Lani paused halfway through. “I’m here—I just had to come in the front. Shearin’s produce truck is blocking the back alley. Again.”

  “I saw.” Lani smiled. “Alva went over to talk to him.”

  Riley smiled back. “Really,” she said with heightened interest. “Did she take her apron off this time?”

  Lani nodded. “And refreshed her lipstick.”

  “Ah, taking one for the team. Admirable. Poor man won’t know what hit him.”

  “I know. Poor Sam. Here he’s been angling for one of Alva’s home-cooked meals for as long as I’ve had the shop open, and she just isn’t interested.”

  “I know. She told me Harold ruined her for all other men.” Riley sighed and fanned herself as she said it.

  “I know,” Lani said. “Have you ever seen a picture of Harold?” Riley nodded and they indulged in a short burst of laughter.

  “It is sweet, though,” Riley said.

  “All I know is if she can get Sam to stop parking his truck diagonally across the alley every time he makes a delivery, I’ll cater a dinner for him myself.”

  Riley wiggled her eyebrows. “Somehow, I’m not thinking Sam is going to want extra company. He only has eyes for Alva.”

  Lani laughed. “Despite what she says, I’m not so sure Alva minds as much as she claims to. Hey, could you flip the sign for me? But leave the door unlocked, just in case. Franco isn’t here yet, and Charlotte phoned and said she’d be in at some time tonight.”

  “Really? They’re back?”

  Charlotte and Carlo had gone back to New York so she could meet his giant, extended Puerto Rican family.

  “That’s great! Did she say how it went? How did the big introductions go? Is he going to go back to New Delhi with her to meet her folks?”

  “She didn’t have time to say, but she sounded happy. We’ll get the nitty-gritty tonight. If we have to drag it out of her.”

  “I’ll help pull,” Riley said with a laugh. She piled her toolbox and quilted tote on the counter, then leaned down and took an appreciative sniff of the sampler plate. “What’s on the tray?”

  “Oh, right. I forgot I put those there. Inside-out caramel apple.” There was a little quirk to her smile. “You’ll all get to taste test tonight. I just brought them up front to get an outside opinion from a new customer.”

  Recognizing the quirk in Lani’s smile, Riley’s grew more bemused. “Really. Anyone I know?”

  Lani motioned to a point behind Riley. “I believe you may have met once or twice.” Then she pushed the rest of the way through the door. “Don’t forget to turn the sign! He’s distracting like that,” she called out as the door swung shut behind her.

  Riley frowned, completely confused, then popped a tester cupcake cube
in her mouth, and promptly forgot everything else as she groaned in abject appreciation. She remained where she stood, enjoying every last bit of the entire flavor experience, then sighed in pleasure before turning to get her stuff. “Oh, right. The sign.” She turned back to the door, only to jump back a half step, then stop dead in her tracks.

  Quinn lifted his hand and gave her a short wave.

  “It’s like you were put on this earth to give me repeated heart attacks,” Riley said, dropping the hand she realized she’d clasped to her chest like some fluttering heroine in a sultry, Southern drama.

  “I didn’t want to interrupt, that’s all. Sounds like an exciting evening ahead. I didn’t realize it was closing time. I can see myself out.”

  There hadn’t been a trace of sarcasm in his voice, so she kept her tone politely casual as well. “We close early on Mondays, at six. It’s usually the slowest business day.”

  “We? Do you moonlight for Lani?”

  “No, I just—we’re family here. Of sorts.”

  “Right.” He smiled. “So this would be bitchy bake night, then.”

  Riley rolled her eyes, but couldn’t help laughing. “I see you’ve met Miss Alva. She does help out in the shop from time to time.”

  “Wise choice. She’s a good salesperson. I don’t know any of the other members she mentioned, but it sounds like you’ve assembled quite the group. Sounds like fun.”

  Riley lifted an eyebrow. “It is—if you enjoy baking, anyway. Somehow I don’t see you frosting little cakes, but—”

  “My skills are many and varied,” he said. “But, you’re right. The only thing I ever baked was biscuits with my grandmother, and that was ages ago. I’m not sure being the designated biscuit cutter really qualifies me even as that. I had to stand on a stool.”

  Riley’s smile warmed, even though she was determined not to soften toward him. She needed to stop thinking about him. All the time. He needed to stop being charming. And memorable. More Quinn Moments she definitely did not need. And right before Cupcake Club, too. She needed him gone before Franco and his all-knowing eyes and ears strolled in. “I think that sounds rather sweet, actually. I’m sure she loved the help.”

  “She did. It’s a good memory. Actually, when I walked in here and took in how good everything smelled, it brought back all kinds of memories of being in my grandmother’s kitchen over the years. Many that I’d forgotten.”

  “Scent is a powerful trigger,” Riley said.

  “Yes,” he agreed, and somehow those crystal blue eyes of his grew fractionally darker, and a lot more focused. “It certainly is.”

  Riley felt her skin come alive, but not in an embarrassed flush this time. More like a sudden, intense awareness. Their parting conversation the last time they’d crossed paths echoed through her mind. A woman who has to ask what she’s worth ... without already knowing the answer. Or words to that effect.

  “How did you and Lani come to know each other?” he asked.

  “Why?”

  His smile spread to a grin. The kind of grin that did nothing whatsoever to help her maintain her equilibrium.

  “Just making conversation, that’s all. I’m a writer. We want to know everything. I like knowing more about people. I enjoyed the things you shared about some of the folks here, who’ve come to be your friends.”

  Yet another reason she needed to get him out the door. “I, uh, well, there’s not much to the story, really. I had just moved here, and I was exploring the town square, checking out all the shops.” She edged past him to flip the sign. “While working as a stylist for Foodie—that’s the food magazine I was on staff with back in Chicago—I’d heard about Lani’s shop, and the whole story with Baxter bringing his show here to woo her and ...” And she’d thought it ridiculously romantic. But she wasn’t going to share that with Quinn. “So, I made a point to stop in. We’re both tied to the same industry, or were anyway, in my previous life, so I wanted to say hello. She was in the kitchen, so I poked around while waiting for her to come up front, and, I guess I found myself rearranging things—just a little.”

  Quinn lifted a brow. “Rearranging things? Like the displays?”

  “Her window treatment was all wrong. The cases were good, but they could have been improved, and the shelves behind the register weren’t really being put to the best possible use.” Riley smiled and shrugged. “I can’t help it. I’m a stylist. It’s how my brain works. Anyway, I was just sort of moving things around a tiny bit in the big display window, nothing major, just ... little adjustments, waiting for her to come out.”

  “And she caught you, red-handed? Or cake-handed, as the case may be?”

  Riley laughed at that, and felt the guard she’d tried to keep up collapse like so many cupcakes on a three-tier crystal display stand. “More like frosting-fingered. I sort of knocked one of the little signs over and it snagged the display tablecloth and—”

  Quinn lifted his hand. “I think I’ve witnessed this first hand.”

  Riley did flush then, but it wasn’t so embarrassing anymore. He knew about her klutz tendencies, and apparently found them amusing, or at the very least not off-putting. She found herself laughing as she once again owned her shortcomings, and he laughed along with her. Of course, defenses down, their gazes happened to catch, as they always seemed to do at some point when they were together and ... dammit, she was sucked right back into another one of those moments.

  At least they were moments to her. She’d swear they were for him, too. That whole deepening blue thing happened as his pupils expanded, and her throat went dry and her palms grew damp. Their laughter faded, but somehow, the goofy smiles did not, and for some reason she couldn’t explain, that made the moment even hotter, more intense, than all the previous moments combined. Maybe because they had a shared history, now that they knew more—and liked more—about each other.

  “Anyway,” she managed, pushing gamely past the sudden tightness in her throat, “I apologized for the wreckage, explained what I was doing, and made a few suggestions. We got to talking about my background, and we knew some of the same people.” She lifted a shoulder. “It happened to be a Monday, in fact the shop should have been closed. She’d just forgotten to flip the sign, which was why she’d been in the kitchen as long as she had. Some of the gang started showing up, and she introduced me around, and somehow I found myself back in the kitchen, and ...” She smiled and shrugged.

  “Baking happened,” Quinn finished.

  “It did, indeed. I’ve been part of the bitchy bake group ever since.”

  “I would imagine it’s been a nice tie-in, between the work you do now, and what you did before, working with food and all. Why the change?” he asked. “And the migration?”

  Her defenses down, Riley wasn’t prepared for the question. Something of that showed on her face, and he lifted his hand to halt her response. “You know, none of my business. Even writers don’t get to know everything. I didn’t mean to pry.”

  “Fair’s fair,” she said, “I asked about your family and history here.” Riley smiled briefly ... but didn’t exactly get around to answering the question.

  “Do you enjoy what you’re doing down here? Staging homes? I guess it’s a much grander scale than styling food, bigger platform, bigger challenge. Bigger payoff?” He held her gaze for a moment, then let out a short, self-deprecating laugh. “I’m doing it again.”

  She couldn’t help it, she laughed, too. “You just can’t help yourself, can you? If you were a cat—”

  “I know,” he said with a fast grin. “I’d be dead right now. Usually I’m less impulsive about it, but what you did in Chicago, what you do here ... I find it all fascinating. We’re both in creative fields, but so very different in what we draw from, how we build our respective scenes, so to speak.” He shrugged. “It’s compelling and interesting and makes me want to know more.”

  “Well, I’m flattered,” she said.

  But it wasn’t by accident that she changed the s
ubject. “Lani said you were a new customer. Did you come by to pick up some cupcakes? They are addictive.”

  He hesitated, then said, “Actually, I was just dropping off the towels and your shirt.” He pointed to the shopping bag, still sitting on the counter by the register. “All freshly laundered, good as new.”

  “Oh, thanks. Although nothing can make that jersey good as new again.” It had been bugging her, the whole subterfuge thing, so she added, “I’ve had it since I was in high school.” She smiled. “But I appreciate the effort.”

  Quinn’s smile returned, too. The kind with crinkles around the eyes and that honest warmth filling them. “High school, huh?” He exuded all that charisma as naturally as most people breathed air.

  “Actually, it’s Tommy Flanagan’s jersey.” Her smile turned dry. “I’m just not as good at returning things as you are.”

  “High school sweetheart?”

  Riley laughed at that. “Only in my desperate little schoolgirl dreams. Tommy was the football quarterback, debate team captain, and senior class president, all rolled into one.”

  “I hate him already,” Quinn said.

  Riley grinned. “He made it hard to do that. He was the kind of guy everybody loved. But when it came to girls, he was the head cheerleader type, and well ... I was definitely not that.”

  “So, how’d you end up with the jersey?”

  Her smile turned rueful, and a tiny bit of heat infused her cheeks. “Let’s just say the less than graceful moments you’ve had the pleasure of witnessing when you’ve been around me had their roots very early on in my childhood. By high school, I was a full-fledged dork. In this case, it involved a ridiculous attempt on my part to impress him with my pre-track warm-up skills—of which I had absolutely none, by the way—and the very unfortunate timing of the track field irrigation system flipping on.”