by Cindy Kirk
She opened her mouth, then closed it, unsure how to answer Brittany, or if she even should.
Didn’t matter.
Brittany tilted her head back and bellowed toward the backyard. “WILL!”
No. No, no, no. Charlotte drew a sharp intake of breath. Julie shot her a questioning look.
Brittany pouted, her glossy red lips exaggerated. “He can’t hear me.”
Julie smirked, muttering under her breath as she secured another petit four on the stand. “Can’t everyone? Like, on every planet in the solar system?”
Charlotte bit back a laugh and nudged her friend in warning, but Brittany appeared to not have heard. Before she could decide how to change the subject, Brittany grabbed her wrist and began to tug. “Come outside. We’ll ask him.”
“No, really. That’s not necessary.” Charlotte struggled to free her wrist as politely as possible, but Brittany was on a mission. She really didn’t want to cause a scene at the party, so all she could do was shoot Julie a pleading glance as Brittany propelled them out the backdoor.
“I’ll just finish up in here!” Julie called before the door swung shut behind them.
Great. Always the model employee.
Charlotte caught a glance of her friend in the picture window, giving her a wide grin and a thumbs-up. Why hadn’t she filled Julie in on Will before the party? Then maybe she could have had a little backup. Now Julie was probably thinking this was a great matchmaking opportunity.
Not that Charlotte would have ever expected this to happen. She squinted as a sudden gust of wind raked her hair off her shoulders and shook the tree branches overhead. Maybe she could just blow away.
“Hey, Will!” Brittany’s voice screeched across a wide expanse of manicured lawn, lit with various-sized tiki torches. Groups of twenty-somethings, sipping from polished glasses and wearing everything from jeans to cocktail dresses, stopped and stared as Brittany dragged Charlotte around a flower bed and a gurgling birdbath.
She stopped short near a table laden with wrapped gifts. “Oh, look. Bed Bath & Beyond.” She let go to check the name tag dangling from the silver package. “I hope it’s that blender I registered for.”
Charlotte sidestepped away from the crazy bride, rubbing her wrist. Who’d have thought a baker would need to incorporate hazard pay into her billing? Now, if she could just sneak back into the house, maybe Brittany would keep ogling gifts and forget the whole thing.
“I’m so sorry.” Adam appeared at Charlotte’s side, holding a plate full of cheese, crackers, and mini sausages and grinned even as he shook his head. “Brittany gets a little . . . aggressive when she’s had alcohol.”
Then why in the world would you give it to her? Charlotte forced a smile as Brittany began picking up packages and shaking them. “No problem. She must have forgotten what she’d wanted. I’ll just head back—”
“Oh, right. Will. She had been calling for Will.” Adam turned and cupped his hand beside his mouth as he shouted across the torchlit yard. “Hey, Will!”
“No, really, it’s fine.” Her panicked heart drifted toward her toes as she realized she was fighting a losing battle. She felt heat run up her neck and across her ears. Could this get any worse?
Charlotte reluctantly followed Adam’s gaze and finally saw Will standing near the back fence, surrounded literally on all sides by giggling blondes—well, and one brunette. One had her arm linked through his, head tilted back, laughing as Will gestured dramatically with his can of Coke. The other flipped her hair back flirtatiously and leaned in, putting her hand on his arm and saying something softly that made Will laugh.
All of them were tall, leggy, and gorgeous—and definitely did not look as if they baked or taste tested very many sweets.
Not that Charlotte had a reason to be jealous. Will wasn’t hers. He was Melissa’s. And speaking of—was one of them Melissa?
She had to know. For no logical reason—or at least, no reason she was willing to admit to herself—she had to find out. She turned to Adam and offered what she hoped came across as a casual smile. “I was hoping Melissa would get to try one of the petit fours. Where is she?”
“Oh, she’s not here.” Adam shoved a cracker topped with cheese in his mouth and kept talking. “She doesn’t ever come to this kind of stuff with Will.”
Really? Was she so secure in their relationship that she didn’t mind the way he acted with other women? Or did she not know how he acted when she wasn’t here?
A voice whispered inside her head: None of your business.
But every fiber of her being screamed otherwise. She hated for any woman to get caught up in the lies, the triangle, the heartache that she’d been trapped in for so long. Her eyes narrowed as she took in the sight of the brunette leaning in close to Will’s shoulder and feeding him something off her plate.
She had dodged a bullet with Will, that was for sure. He was exactly like her ex—the same kind of guy she swore never to get involved with again. She wouldn’t put herself or Zoe through that kind of torture. And apparently, she’d proven that she couldn’t trust her instincts—Will had seemed really nice at the bakery, very gentlemanly and mature.
But maybe that level of nice was just another method of flirting.
Her breath tightened at the close call. She’d almost done it again.
She strode away from Adam without another word and back toward the house, half hoping Will hadn’t seen her and half hoping he had. If Melissa ever came in The Dough Knot with him . . . well, she’d have a moral dilemma to deal with then. It wasn’t her business, not directly, but seriously, how could all of Will’s friends—Brittany and Adam, especially—treat Melissa this way? Why hadn’t anyone ever told her the kind of man Will really was?
Why hadn’t anyone ever told Charlotte about her ex?
She rushed back into the kitchen, paused, and took a deep breath. She couldn’t afford to let the anger from the past get the best of her.
But she could sure as heck make certain never to repeat it.
This was why Will hated parties. A bunch of loud people who only grew louder after they’d been drinking, and perfectly made-up women who seemed to think of him as either a child to be doted on or a fish to be caught.
Exhibit A—the girl who kept trying to feed him off her plate. It was weird, and he didn’t know how to stop it without causing a scene. And Brittany had already caused plenty of those all by herself. He didn’t need to up the tally. What had she been doing earlier, dragging some party guest through the yard and hollering, before abandoning her near the gift table?
He caught a glimpse of the woman’s back as she headed toward the house, anger stiffening her spine. She tossed back her hair, and Will swallowed the lump of cracker lodged in his throat. Charlotte?
His heart soared. He hadn’t realized she’d already brought the petit fours. He wanted to see her. Badly. Wanted to apologize for the way he’d acted at The Dough Knot, wanted to confess his fear and coward’s way of handling it.
Wanted to get away from these Stepford blondes who were fighting over him in that subtle, catty way only women could.
His initial plan—to leave the obligatory party early after charming Adam, Brittany, and the other guests into forgiving his lack of sociability—had backfired. He’d intended to be the life of the party just long enough to make a quick escape. But now he had a herd of women sticking close enough to him that he was suffocating on the mix of perfume and hair spray, and he didn’t know how to bail.
If he’d still been in his college frat-boy days, this would have been a dream. Bragging rights to take back to the frat house, full of exaggerated stories and plenty of kissing and telling.
But those days were long over, and he didn’t miss them a single bit. Now he didn’t want a conquest. He didn’t want a story. He just wanted to leave.
And he really wanted to try one of Charlotte’s petit fours.
He disentangled his arm from the red, inch-long nails of the brunette gripping it
, and smiled to soften the rejection for her. Maybe he could catch Charlotte if he hurried, try to smooth over last week’s bakery bailout, and load up a plate of goodies for Melissa. He couldn’t let himself get too close to Charlotte—that was still unwise.
But taking a week away from the bakery to get her out of his head obviously hadn’t worked, given the spike in his heart rate when he spotted her a minute ago. If he couldn’t be around Charlotte without wanting more, and if he couldn’t be away from her without nearly obsessing over her—what option remained?
She had sneaked inside his head, and was getting dangerously close to his heart. The heart he’d put on hold indefinitely. But now he wasn’t sure he could get it back even if he wanted to.
He took a few steps toward the house. The curly-haired blonde to his left pulled him back.
“Where are you going?” She batted lashes so heavily coated with mascara he wondered how she could manage to blink.
“Inside.” Without a second glance, he tugged free and resumed his trek through the yard. Did women actually think this level of clinginess and control worked? Then again, in his former life, it probably would have. He shook his head in disgust over his own past. It had taken Melissa’s accident to awaken him.
And that just made him feel all the more guilty. If he’d been a better man, maybe that accident would never have happened.
His steps faltered. Maybe he didn’t need a petit four. Maybe he didn’t need to find Charlotte, after all.
Maybe he just needed to keep hiding. Right out there in the open, in that circle of beautiful, shallow females who only confirmed he was doing the right thing and missing absolutely nothing of substance by avoiding a relationship.
Then he glimpsed Charlotte through the window, stacking giant silver trays. He opened the door.
She looked up, windblown and clearly aggravated, judging by the tight lines around her mouth and the pinch between her eyebrows. Then he remembered—Brittany. Charlotte had been the woman he’d seen Brittany toting around outside. He’d been so glad to see her, he’d forgotten about Brittany being . . . well, Brittany. No wonder Charlotte looked as if she could smash someone in the face with a petit four.
Which looked delicious. He stepped inside, closer to the dessert table, and smiled at Charlotte and her friend. But Charlotte’s tense expression didn’t relax. Uh-oh. Maybe it wasn’t just about Brittany.
Her redheaded coworker’s eyes widened. She looked back and forth between Charlotte and Will and then snatched the trays from Charlotte’s hands. “I’ll load the van.” And just like that, she was gone.
He glimpsed the anger in Charlotte’s eyes and was tempted to call the redhead back as mediator. Instead, he took a bite of an orange-topped petit four. “Wow, these are amazing. Good call.”
He wasn’t exaggerating. It was the one of the best desserts he’d ever tasted. He’d had never thought to try the orange caramel flavor with cinnamon and pecans, but it worked. And was that nutmeg?
Charlotte was inspiring him to want to cook again. He hadn’t thought twice about ingredients in years, but everything he tasted of hers made him want to examine it to find the best part. Find her best part.
She softened, as if on autopilot, before quickly stiffening again. “Thanks. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go.” She started to push past him toward the front of the house.
“Charlotte.” He stepped in front of her, and her eyebrows shot up.
“I said, excuse me.”
He’d heard her. Still didn’t like it. “What’s the hurry?”
“I’ve got to be somewhere.” She checked her wrist, then must have realized she hadn’t put her watch on. She tapped her back pocket and pulled out her cell phone. “I’m running late.”
Something else was up. She wouldn’t make eye contact. Was this because of his quick departure and week-long absence from The Dough Knot? He cleared his throat. “Listen, about last week . . .”
She didn’t give him a chance to explain—not that he’d totally figured out the right words to say, anyway. Avoiding his eyes, she shrugged, gaze glued to the floor. “Forget it.”
“No, I clearly hurt your feelings. I want to make it right.”
“It’s not a big deal.”
She was trying to move past him again, and if he didn’t relent soon, he’d just be a jerk. Still, he wanted her to hear him out.
But what excuse did he have that he could actually voice? “I left in a hurry, and it was rude. I’m sorry.” The facts, if nothing else.
“You have nothing to apologize for.” She cut him a sharp glance, one that made him wish she’d go back to averting her gaze. “You owe me nothing.”
Ouch. “I thought we were friends.” He wanted to be more than that. Didn’t he? He didn’t know anymore. He only knew that the thought of Charlotte holding anything against him made him want to fix it. He already missed the friendly banter they’d created over his weeks of Tuesday visits to The Dough Knot. The thought of losing that made his head throb. “Aren’t we friends?”
She lifted her chin. “You’re my client.”
That one cut even deeper. He silently stepped aside. She slipped past him without a backward glance.
He knew, because he watched her leave.
“Why are all men the same?” Charlotte struggled to keep her voice down as she rinsed out a mixing bowl in the industrial kitchen sink.
It was Tuesday afternoon, but Zoe was in the dining room, eating a chocolate-chip bagel and baking pretend cupcakes. She’d been out of school for the day for teacher conferences, so Charlotte had set her up at one of the tables with a rainy-day toy baking set she’d stashed for just such an occasion.
“Is that a rhetorical question?” Julie paused to swipe a lick of cheesecake batter from a spatula before tossing it in the other side of the sink. “Or are you actually expecting an answer?”
“I don’t know.” Charlotte dried the bowl and set it on the counter. She needed to zest the lemons for the next batch of lemon bars. Needed to put the leftover cake pops from the Hannigans’ birthday party in the front display case. Needed to sort through inventory for their upcoming order. She was pretty sure they were running low on bakery boxes.
But all she could think about was whether or not Will would show up at 5:40 and what on earth she would say if he did.
“Rhetorically, I agree.” Julie ran hot water over the dirty dishes, then shut it off. “But technically, it’s not really true. You just had a bad experience.”
“Bad experiences.” Charlotte emphasized the plural.
“Every guy isn’t the same as Zoe’s dad.”
“I know.” Maybe. But Julie didn’t know the whole story. Didn’t know that Charlotte had been the other woman. Didn’t know about Will and the mistake she’d almost made—again.
Unless Charlotte was terribly mistaken, Julie didn’t have any major mistakes in her life that she was still trying to atone for. She wasn’t a single mom struggling to overcome a bad reputation—one so mottled she still wasn’t entirely sure which stories were lies anymore.
She grabbed the grater and pulled a lemon from the bottom drawer of the refrigerator. Zoe’s sing-song voice carried from the front of the shop as she made up a poem about her toy cupcake. My cupcake is big, my cupcake is yummy, my cupcake will go straight to my tummy.
Zoe deserved better than this. Better than a mom who still carried a Scarlet Letter of shame. Better than a mother who was still somehow drawn to the Wrong Guy.
My cupcake is glad, it never has a frownie, my cupcake is marrying the crumbly Mr. Brownie.
Better than a dad who allowed his fiancée to talk him out of his daughter’s life.
Her grater worked faster over the lemon. Would she and Zoe ever be able to settle down with someone predictable? Safe? Committed?
“Careful there, Boss.” Julie’s voice rang a warning as she started digging through their pile of bakery reject cookies. “Don’t want to add knuckles to the ingredient list in
those lemon bars.”
Some days, Charlotte felt like a reject cookie herself. Good enough for someone to be attracted to initially, but not worth selling out for. “It’s just . . . you know Will?”
“From the Bridezilla wedding? Of course.” Julie popped one of the too-crispy-to-sell cookies in her mouth and mumbled around it. “Your very own Mr. Darcy.”
“Hardly. Mr. Darcy isn’t available. But you wouldn’t have known it from the way he flirted at that engagement party.” Just remembering that crowd of women gathered around him twisted her stomach. But not from jealousy—just out of respect for Melissa. That was all.
“Wow, really?” Julie reached for another reject, eyes wide as she absorbed the news. “You wouldn’t have known it from the way he interacts with you here at the bakery.”
Charlotte’s hand stilled on the next lemon. “What do you mean?”
“You haven’t noticed the way Will looks at you?” Julie asked incredulously. “I thought it was obvious. That’s why I always tried to leave you two alone. I was playing cupid.”
Cupid aiming at the wrong heart.
Charlotte began to zest again, her thoughts racing. Was Julie right? She’d automatically assumed she’d been leading Will on in her attraction to him. Apparently, that was what she did, if the accusations of her ex and his fiancée had any merit. Was it possible Will had been coming on to her instead?
But Julie didn’t say flirting. She’d said “the way he looks at you.” Which to Charlotte, went a lot deeper than mere witty conversation or banter.
Eyes didn’t lie.
Either way, she didn’t want to be that woman. No, wait. She wasn’t that woman. Why did she keep forgetting that she hadn’t known about her ex’s fiancée? She definitely hadn’t been living a lifestyle she was proud of at the time, but she would have never cheated on someone she loved—or helped someone else cheat. Still, the accusations from years ago lingered. She was . . . stained.