When she stretched her hand toward another shard, the bodice of her gown pulling tight across her bosom, Tye’s instincts went to war. Self-preservation finally won out over lust, and he backed away. Slowly, he pulled off the apron and set it aside. “This has been a stressful day. What you really need, Miss Donovan, is a little time to relax. You’re strung tight as a two-dollar fiddle.”
Of course, Tye was really talking about himself.
She blew a small, disgusted puff of air. “I can’t relax. I have too much to do. Too many problems to solve.”
Her fingers closed around the ragged edges of the glass. When she flinched, Tye realized she’d cut herself. He mouthed a curse and reached for her hand. “Lemme see.”
Blood pearled in a thin line along her palm and smeared the surface of the shard. “Ouch,” he said, appropriating the glass. He tossed it into the trash, then took hold of Claire’s wrist and helped her to her feet. He reached for his handkerchief, frowned when he found it soiled with chocolate pudding, then discarded it in favor of one of Claire’s embroidered tea towels.
His touch was gentle as he dipped a corner in water and dabbed at the cut, frowning as the bright red stain spread across the pristine cloth. “You should have listened to me, Claire. It’s not deep, but you’ll feel it every time you move your hands the next couple of days.”
Out of habit developed from weeks of tending to children, he lifted her hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss to her palm just beside the cut. Then, because he’d lost his mind under the influence of Magic, he placed another pair of kisses at her wrist. Slow, experimenting kisses. Learning her texture and her taste. He licked her skin, and sweetness exploded across his tongue. His eyes drifted shut as he gloried in the flavor.
Claire made a small sound of distress, jerked her hand from his grip, and clasped it to her breast, her eyes wide and clouded with confusion. Sweetness soured in his mouth as the subtle scent of her fear sliced through the Magic like broken glass.
Tye took a vital step back. He shoved his hands in his pockets and tried to calm the pounding in his chest. What the hell was the matter with him? “Claire, I, uh…”
Color flushed her cheeks, and her voice sounded breathless. “You were right. I’ll go. It’s been a long day. Please lock up for me when you’re finished cleaning.” Turning, she fled from the kitchen and a moment later he heard the outer door bang shut with a rattle of window glass.
Tye muttered an oath and gazed around the small, messy room. He’d scared her with his kisses. Hell, he’d scared himself with those kisses. Another few minutes of that, and he’d have had her on the floor.
What had gotten into him? Had the pudding knocked the brains right out of his head? His gaze drifted to the puddle of Magic at his feet and he scowled. “I’ve got to get out of here.”
As soon as he saw the girls settled in upstairs, he would track down a cleaning lady and pay her double-time—triple-time—to clean the Blessings’ mess here at The Confectionary. After that, he’d order supper. The Green Parrot Saloon had a Mexican cook who made chili hot enough to melt diamonds.
Tye tossed down the tea towel he had flung over his shoulder and headed for the door. Pausing beside Claire’s produce bins, he snagged a pair of habañero peppers he’d noticed earlier. He’d ask the cook to toss these fiery beauties into the chili pot, too.
Melting diamonds was one thing. Burning away the lingering aroma of Magic was quite another.
***
IN THE week that followed, Claire saw little of the Menaces and their uncle. Tye gave her shop a wide berth, and Claire wondered if he always blew so hot and cold with friends.
She wondered about his definition of friendship, considering the way he’d nibbled at her wrist.
Maybe he no longer wished to be her friend. His attitude certainly had changed when she told him about Reid. He’d looked downright horrified. Claire told herself she shouldn’t care. If he found her actions so despicable, then she didn’t want him for a friend anyway. A true friend offered support, not judgment and condemnation. She had plenty to keep her busy. She didn’t have time to be anyone’s friend right at the moment. And she certainly wasn’t looking for romance. At least, that’s what she tried to tell herself.
If only her dreams would cooperate. Almost every night, Tye McBride haunted her sleep. He played the role of knight in English castles and pirate on the Caribbean Sea. Once he’d come to her as Romeo with her his Juliet. It was enough to make a girl blush with embarrassment.
As for the McBride Menaces, following the cake-baking incident they appeared content to confine their mischief to areas outside Claire’s domain. Occasionally she observed them playing in the alley with Ralph, and twice she spied them toting a fish in a bowl out onto the back stoop. The first time she saw them lay the poor fish on the boards to flop around she’d been tempted to intervene. But before she could clean the bread dough from her hands and exit the kitchen, they had returned the fish to water. Seeing them coo and kiss the surface of the bowl, Claire decided to mind her own business— at least where the events in the alley were concerned. Those taking place on the street in front of her shop proved much more fun to watch.
The parade of women to “Lord McBride’s” front door had slowed somewhat, but by no means ended. Claire found it both educational and an entertaining distraction to watch the different ploys the women utilized in their attempts to gain the man’s attention. She considered the early evening serenade especially inspired.
Because she was too much a businesswoman to ignore the increase in foot traffic past her shop, she set up a small display table complete with advertising broadsides and sample cookies in the Rankin Building vestibule. By arriving early and staying late at her shop, she managed to find enough extra hours in the day to keep the sample plate filled, even with the Menaces making numerous trips up and down the stairs. The days were long and wearing, and she looked forward to Lars’s return and the help of an extra pair of hands.
Each day while she worked, she tried to think of ways to redeem the Magical Wedding Cake’s reputation— short of marrying Reid, of course. To that end, she spent a few minutes every afternoon writing letters to friends and acquaintances along the Gulf coast in which she elaborated on the good fortune and contentment she’d found in Fort Worth. Maybe once people learned of her happiness, they wouldn’t view the aborted wedding as such a disaster.
Progress toward The Confectionary’s grand opening proceeded on schedule, but as the day grew near, she suffered a severe attack of nerves. What if no one came? What if her customers didn’t like her wares? What if the McBride Menaces decided to pull one of their mischievous pranks?
For her own peace of mind as much as anything, the night before her first day of business Claire rigged a tin can alarm across The Confectionary’s back door, then slept on the floor, guarding the front. The night passed without incident.
Before dawn, amazingly well rested under the circumstances, Claire rose and heated up her oven. At precisely six A.M. she raised the shades and turned the front lock. Within minutes her first customer arrived, and soon others trickled in.
A few of her customers came dressed in evening attire and Claire assumed they had yet to find their beds for the night. A dapper young man with beautiful blue eyes confirmed it. “Our poker game broke up less than an hour ago, and when someone in the saloon mentioned you were opening your shop today, I figured I’d come see if you cooked as pretty as you look.” He took a large bite of a cherry tart and wiggled his brows suggestively. “A sensual delight, Miss Claire. When I lay my head upon my pillow, I’ll be dreaming of your…pleasures.”
Tye McBride walked in during the man’s flirtation, and catching Claire’s attention, he shot her a scathing glare. Following on their uncle’s heels, his nieces made a dash for the display case. After pondering the offerings, the girls ordered cinnamon rolls and milk, but their uncle intervened. “What do you have that isn’t made with that witches’ brew?”
; “Excuse me?”
“The Magic. I’m not letting my Blessings have it. Can they get something to eat here or not?”
Claire was insulted. “And what do you think is wrong with my Magic, sir?”
He waved a hand. “I just think you have to be extra careful with what you give children. I once knew someone who let their son get ahold of some oriental herbs. The boy started talking and didn’t shut up for three days.”
It took all of Claire’s hostess skills not to roll her eyes. “The most that Magic will do to the children, sir, is make them sigh with pleasure over the taste of what they consume.”
“Nevertheless, what can they have that’s Magic-less?”
She set her teeth, glared at him, and said, “Raisin muffins.”
Tye motioned the girls to take a seat at a vacant table. “Raisin muffins, huh? And why don’t you put Magic in the raisin muffins?”
“I don’t believe the flavors mix well.”
“Interesting.”
Maribeth piped up. “I don’t care what I eat as long as I eat it soon. I’m starved, Uncle Tye.”
When the other two girls joined in with similar complaints, Tye dragged a hand across his face and ordered, “Muffins and milk for my nieces. I’ll have two fried eggs and a breakfast steak.”
“Steak and eggs are not on the menu, McBride.” Claire gestured toward the display case. “You may make your selection from there.”
He glanced toward the case, then grimaced. “Sweet stuff. What kind of breakfast is that? What kind of restaurant are you running here?”
“It’s a bakery, not a restaurant.”
“Well, bake me up some steak and eggs. Toast, too.”
At that, he rudely dismissed her by turning to his nieces and inquiring after the status of homework due that day. Claire considered refusing him service entirely, but it would be an inauspicious start to The Confectionary’s first morning of business.
She would not, however, serve him steak and eggs.
When she brought the girls their muffins and milk, she set a small loaf of hot Swedish rye bread and a crock of butter in front of Tye. Tye’s only remark was to grumble about the noise from the bakery waking them upstairs.
Shortly thereafter, the trickle of customers swelled to a steady stream. Claire stayed too busy to give the McBride table much attention, but when they rose to leave she did notice he’d eaten the entire loaf of bread. She watched him finish off Katrina’s milk, too.
Claire grinned about it off and on throughout the morning whenever she had a moment to think, although she didn’t have too many of those. By the time she turned the OPEN sign to CLOSED at two P.M., she was exhausted and her baked goods depleted. The grand opening of The Confectionary had been a rousing success.
“The free samples worked better than I thought,” she mused, sinking into a chair. Grinning, she glanced up toward the ceiling and gave a silent salute to “Lord McBride.”
During the week that followed, The Confectionary’s business steadily increased. And every morning, shortly after she opened the doors, the McBrides wandered in. Each day Tye ordered steak and eggs. Each day she gave him whatever she chose from her stock on hand. If she served whatever she felt had turned out best that morning, she saw no reason to make an issue of it. She refused to come right out and admit to herself she was trying to impress him.
They never exchanged more than a few words. He always cleaned his plate and a couple of times ordered seconds—of steak and eggs. He drank more than his fair share of coffee, but made up for it with extra-generous tips. In a few short days, their presence for breakfast became routine, and Claire found herself watching the door for them each morning.
That was why on a Tuesday morning eight days after she opened the bakery, when the McBrides hadn’t graced her door by eight A.M., she started to be concerned. By the usual lull in business around nine, she was downright worried.
So she broke one of her father’s cardinal rules about running a bakery and closed up shop. When none of the McBrides answered her knock, she tried the door and found it locked. “There is probably nothing to worry about,” she told herself. “Maybe they weren’t hungry today.”
But she couldn’t shake the looming sense of disaster. So, retrieving a spare key from the Menaces’ hiding place under a rock in the back alley, she hurried upstairs. What she found when she opened the door at the top of the landing made her heart leap to her throat.
Gas. That distinctive, skunk-oil stink of town gas.
The odor of it stole her breath, and for just a moment Claire stood frozen in shock. My God, Tye. The children!
Had the Menaces made the fatal mistake of blowing out the flame of a gas lamp? Please, Lord. No.
Instinct had her first rushing upstairs to the attic bedroom where the girls lay sleeping. She couldn’t smell it up there. “Emma? Maribeth? Girls, wake up,” Claire called, hurrying to throw open a window. She took a gulp of fresh air as it seeped into the room, then turned to the youngest child, the smallest child, and gingerly felt for a pulse. “Thank God.”
Moving quickly Claire shook Emma hard, saying, “Darling, wake up.” Immediately, she repeated the process with Maribeth. To her enormous relief, the girls began to stir.
“What’s wrong?” Emma said, her voice slow and sleepy.
Katrina sat up, rubbing her eyes. “What are you doing here, Miss Donovan? Did you bring us our muffins in bed?”
Maribeth’s head emerged from her covers like a turtle from its shell. Beside her, the rapid movement beneath the sheets looked suspiciously like Ralph’s tail.
If that little dog was all right, certainly the girls were, too. Claire needed to see to Tye.
“Girls, I want you to grab your robes and hurry downstairs. And take Ralph with you.”
Emma, her eyes still heavy with sleep, frowned and asked, “What’s wrong?”
“I’m not certain. A gas leak or trouble with a lamp. Hurry, girls. You need to get out of this building. You can wait in the alley. Where does your Uncle Tye sleep?”
Katrina pointed toward the floor. “Down there. Right below us.”
Below them. Where the stink had been strongest.
Urgency gripped Claire. Like a mother hen in a hurry, she rushed the girls downstairs. Awake now and worried, they chattered questions and concerns that Claire couldn’t answer. Katrina started to cry as Maribeth turned on the landing as if to lead the way to their uncle.
“No,” Claire said, trying to limit herself to only shallow breaths as the smell intensified. “I’ll get Tye. You go on outside, away from the building, you hear?”
Emma shook her head. “But Uncle Tye—”
“Will be fine. I’ll see to it. Now hurry, girls. And find something to prop open the doors, all right? Both of them.”
Claire waited just long enough to make certain they followed her directions, then went in search of Tye, opening every window she spied along the way.
Despite her breaths of fresh air, the gas seemed to pound at her. Her head began to ache. And when she found Tye’s bedroom and saw him lying so still—so totally silent—her heart seemed to stop.
First she ran to the window and wrenched it open as wide as it would go. Then she went to the unlit wall lamp and gave the opened valve a vicious twist, turning off the escaping gas. A draft must have blown out the flame, she thought. Tye wouldn’t have been so foolish as to turn it off without shutting down the gas.
Then she turned to the bed. “Tye? Oh, Tye.” She was almost afraid to touch him for fear she’d find the cold, clammy skin of death. Her hand trembled as she laid her fingers against his neck, searching for a pulse. Warmth. A faint, but steady beat. Thank God.
She started slapping his face. “Tye, wake up. You must wake up.”
He lay like a corpse, and Claire swore he wouldn’t become one as she forced herself to think what to do.
He needed fresh air. But he was too heavy for her to lift. She gazed toward the window. The half-dozen step
s between it and the bed may as well have been a thousand. How could she get him over to the window?
Help. She’d call for help.
His bedroom window looked out over the alley. When she gazed outside, no one was there. She glanced back toward the bed. “Tye McBride, you wake up this instant!”
Hating to leave him for even a second, she dashed for the front of the building. She yanked up a window, then slapped at the shutter, shoving it open. Then she leaned out and screamed for assistance. Two men at the comer glanced her way, but only one of them started toward her. Slowly. Too slowly.
As she called for him to hurry, the girls came rushing around the corner of the building from the back. “Emma,” Claire said. “Go find more help. Tell them to come fast”
“Uncle Tye. Is he…?”
“He’ll be fine. He’s just too heavy for me to move. I need help.” Lots of it, she feared. With a man as big as McBride, it might take more than two people to move him.
Trusting that assistance was on the way, she hurried back to Tye. Either the gas had burned away her sense of smell or the open windows were doing their work. The odor didn’t permeate the room like before. Claire gripped Tye’s shoulders and shook him hard. “Wake up, McBride.”
He groaned.
She’d never before heard such a beautiful sound. She shook him again.
“What the hell?” he murmured into his pillow, his words slow and slurred.
“Wake up, Tye. There’s been a gas leak. You must get up and get out of here.”
“My head. Hell. I can’t…the girls.” He opened his eyes and lifted his head off the pillow. “My girls?”
“They’re fine. They’re safe.”
His head dropped back. Claire thought he might have passed out again.
Footsteps pounded up the stairs. “Hello? You hollered for help?”
“Here,” she called, recognizing the voice as that of one of her customers. “We need to get him outside, Mr. Landry. There’s been a gas leak.”
Mr. Landry was a good thirty years older than Claire, crotchety and gruff. But the freight hauler had the muscles of a much younger man and, between the two of them, they were able to get Tye to his feet.
The Bad Luck Wedding Cake Page 9