Just Desserts

by Barbara Bretton

  Everything about him screamed trouble.

  From the expressions on Trish’s and Rachel’s faces, Hayley wasn’t a minute too soon.

  If he so much as crooked one of those bejeweled fingers in their direction, those two idiotic little girls would follow him right out the door and into the biggest mistake of their lives.

  Twenty years ago she had done exactly that and it would be nice if somebody finally benefited from her mistakes.

  “Trish!” She sounded like a marine drill sergeant on steroids. “Rachel! I need you two in the kitchen.”

  Rachel stared at her wide-eyed. Trish looked like she was in a trance.

  “Now!” Hayley barked, and the two teenagers sprinted past her.

  Even Leather Boy straightened up.

  She could get used to this.

  “I’m Hayley Goldstein,” she said as she rounded the counter, “and if this is about Michael, I can’t help you.”

  “Anton Mezvinsky.” He looked a whole lot less dangerous when he was puzzled. “Who’s Michael?”

  “You’re not looking for my ex?” If she sounded wary, it was because she was. Process servers and debt collectors could be very sneaky. She had learned that the hard way.

  “I’m not looking for anybody.” He gestured toward the street where an enormous black SUV had claimed pride of place in front of the shop. “Finn had to take a call. I came along for the ride.”

  They stared at each other for a full second or two. She was surprised to note that he had very kind eyes. Dark brown, thick lashes. A touch of sweetness where you wouldn’t expect it. Not that she was letting down her guard for even a second, but still…

  “Anton, unless you’re looking to buy a lemon meringue pie, I don’t think I can help you.”

  “If your lemon meringue is half as good as that deep-dish apple I tried, I’ll take two.”

  “You tried my deep-dish apple?” He wasn’t local. She knew that for sure. They didn’t have table service. So where did he get a slice of Goldy’s apple pie?

  “Trish gave me a sample.”

  Trish was giving out samples?

  “Makes a customer feel welcome. Great idea.”

  Anton was right. It was a great idea. Too bad it wasn’t hers.

  “The cardamom was another great idea.”

  She blinked and zeroed back in on Anton. “You tasted cardamom?”

  “A dash,” Anton said. “Faint but it rocked.”

  “Cardamom’s my secret ingredient. Nobody’s ever identified it.”

  Anton grinned, a surprisingly charming sight in a muscular, scary, leather-clad, bald guy. “It’s not a secret anymore.”

  “Are you a baker?”

  “Baker, chef, short-order cook. In my business you need something to keep you sane. I’m thinking maybe one day I’d like to open a place of my own, but that’s a way off.”

  Part-time baker, part-time loan collector? Her guard went back up. “So what’s going on here, Anton? You seem like a nice guy. I mean, you know your cardamom and that has to mean something, but you know and I know that you didn’t come here to admire the baked goods. Either tell me what’s going on or—”

  Anton raised his hand to stop her. “Wait,” he said. “Let me get Finn. He’ll explain everything.”

  Fin? Was that one of those mob nicknames like Paulie Walnuts or Vinny the Chin? Her ex didn’t exactly run with the Mensa crowd. Visions of a Tony Soprano wannabe with a chip on his shoulder and a score to settle sprang to life and she debated the wisdom of locking the front door and putting up the CLOSED sign while there was still time.

  Anton approached the SUV parked at the curb. She watched, fascinated, as the passenger door opened and a suit stepped out. The Suit towered over Anton. His shoulders were as wide as a running back’s, something that was either the result of good genetics or an even better tailor. The rest of him was long, lean, and extremely easy on the eyes.

  She busied herself wiping imaginary fingerprints from the glass countertop as The Suit said something to Anton, straightened his tie, then strode across the sidewalk to the front door with Anton riding shotgun. He didn’t walk like a guy who spent his life in suits. His walk was loose, easy, and (why not admit it?) sexy. Not that how he walked mattered, of course. She was just saying.

  “I’m told you’re looking for me,” she said as soon as the door closed behind them. She had never been good at playing games, which probably explained why she rarely had a second date.

  “Finn Rafferty,” he said, extending his right hand. “You’re Hayley Maitland?”

  “Hayley Maitland Goldstein,” she corrected him. Like it or not, that was what was on her driver’s license.

  He looked surprised. “One of the counter girls told me you were divorced.”

  She needed to have a long talk with Trish. “I am divorced,” she said. “I never got around to switching back to my maiden name.” Not that it was any of his business. “What about you? Married? Single? Divorced? Gay?” Let him see how it felt.

  “Divorced,” he said. “Occupational hazard.”

  Uh-oh.

  Their eyes locked and for a moment she almost forgot he was probably there to collect on her ex-husband’s debts. He wore a suit but there was definitely a bad boy lurking beneath the fancy tailoring.

  “The counter girl also told me you weren’t here,” he continued.

  “I shouldn’t be. I should be in the kitchen working on a commission, so if we could get to the point, I’d appreciate it.” She had learned the hard way how to handle her ex’s cohorts and it wasn’t by flirting with them.

  “Is this the way you usually treat a potential client?”

  “You mean you’re not here to—” She caught herself midsentence. No point airing the Goldstein dirty linen if she didn’t have to.

  “I’ll pay double the going rate if you’ll finish that sentence.” He managed to say it with such good humor that even she had to laugh.

  “There’s a going rate for family secrets? I could be a very rich woman.” She glanced at the clock then back at The Suit.

  He got the message. “Then I’ll get to the point: I need a cake in the shape of a set of drums and I hear you’re the best baker for the job.”

  “A set of drums? I can do that.” In my sleep with my favorite spatula tied behind my back. A little fondant, some chocolate paste, a secret stash of foam, and a wave of her magic wand and she could re-create anything from the string section of the philharmonic to Aerosmith in their prime.

  “There’s more,” he said. “We need to feed two hundred.”

  She quickly did the math. When you had a kid in a fancy private school, you couldn’t help seeing things in terms of quarterly payments.

  “We did a wedding reception for five hundred last spring. The main cake was in the shape of a pair of swans. I can show you photos if you like.”

  “I’ve already seen them.”

  “Trish again?” That girl was either a natural resource or a world-class yenta.

  “I did my homework. In the last year you handled the Citibank reception at McCarter in Princeton, two election-night parties in Harrisburg and Trenton, and private functions for some very well-known families.”

  “Tell me your name again so I can do my homework too.” Google. A woman’s best friend.

  “Finn Rafferty.” He handed her a business card with lots of information printed on it. East Hampton caught her eye.

  She looked up at him. “You’re a lawyer?”

  “You have something against lawyers?”

  “And you’re from East Hampton?”

  “You have something against Long Island?”

  “I’m just wondering why a lawyer from the eastern end of Long Island would drive all the way down to South Jersey to buy a cake.”

  “You look like you think I’m going to slap a subpoena on you.”

  He was closer than he knew. “What I’m thinking is that I’m pretty sure you have bakeries in the Hamptons.”r />
  He grinned. “Maybe you should bring your counter help back up front. Your cakeside manner needs a little work.”

  “I’m direct. I find it saves a lot of time.”

  “I represent Tommy Stiles. He’s the one in need of your services.”

  She burst out laughing. “I’m sorry but I thought you said Tommy Stiles.”

  “I did.”

  “As in Tommy Stiles and the After Life.” As in super-famous rock star who had been around forever.

  “You’ve heard of him.”

  Heard of him? That was like asking if you had heard of Elvis or the Beatles. She struggled to maintain her composure. “Of course. He’s—uh, he’s a singer.” A singer who had happened to make his bones alongside Springsteen and Joel, Stewart and Clapton.

  Rafferty’s hazel-gold eyes twinkled with amusement. “He’ll be performing at the Borgata in Atlantic City next week and he wants you to handle the cakes for the after-party.”

  She hated herself for asking the question but the “Why me?” slipped out just the same.

  “Because you’re the best between here and New York and Tommy only deals with the best.”

  She had always believed in herself, but the fact that Tommy Stiles even knew she was on the same planet rendered her temporarily speechless.

  Not to mention suspicious.

  If Finn noticed, he didn’t let on. “We’ll supply rooms for you and your staff. Naturally you’ll have full access to the kitchen’s facilities. Whatever you need to get the job done, it’s yours.”

  “I usually bake the cakes here then schlep them to the site in the back of our van.” She started to laugh. “I wish you could see the look on your face.”

  He had the good grace to look a little sheepish. “I’m from Jersey myself. I know these roads. How many casualties have there been?”

  “I’ll admit it gets a little hairy on the turnpike at rush hour but that’s pretty much how it’s done.”

  “We know your going rate and because this is short notice, we’re willing to sweeten the deal.”

  “I’ll—maybe I can—how about I work up a proposal and fax it over to you tonight.”

  “I have a better idea. Why don’t we hammer out the details right now. I didn’t come all this way to go home empty-handed.”

  “I usually like three weeks’ notice for a job like this.”

  “An extra twenty-five percent.”

  “Listen, I’m not trying to bump up the price. We’re a small outfit and that’s a lot of work. I don’t want to promise something I can’t deliver.” She gestured toward the kitchen. “Like the carrot cake the Cumberland County real estate agents expect to dig into a few hours from now. I have to get back in there.”

  “We’re talking major exposure,” Finn Rafferty said. He was pushing hard. “Photographers from InStyle and People. Entertainment Tonight will be sending over a film crew. It’s going to put you on the map.”

  She was a big fan of the style and entertainment magazines. She devoured the splashy multipage spreads featuring celebrity weddings and showers and bar mitzvahs, searching for details about the cakes and cookies and desserts. Those magazines, and their TV counterparts, had made superstars out of unknown bakers with a single well-timed story or photo.

  Hayley Maitland Goldstein, cake decorator to the stars.

  It had a nice ring to it.

  So why was she standing there dithering like she couldn’t make up her mind if the job was worth her time. She was a decisive, ambitious woman. She should have reeled in this commission before Finn Rafferty found somebody else.

  “Do it, Mom!”

  She turned around and saw Lizzie standing in the doorway, watching them with her big, curious eyes. It figured this was the one time the kid didn’t gallop down the steps like a Clydesdale. “How long have you been standing there?”

  “Long enough. This is your Cinderella moment! You can’t let it slip away.”

  “This is my daughter, Lizzie,” she said to Finn, who for some reason looked like he had seen a ghost. “Clearly I made the mistake of raising her with a mind of her own.”

  “Do you know how much it costs to advertise in InStyle?” her daughter demanded. “More than we make in a month! We could pay off the kitchen supplies account and lay in plenty of fondant and chocolate paste and get the big oven repaired and—”

  Hayley raised her hand to stop Lizzie before it got even more embarrassing than it already was. “I thought you were going over to Michie’s to do her taxes.”

  “She cancelled. She said she still can’t find her W-2s.”

  She glanced at Finn Rafferty, who was clearly trying to figure out what was going on. So much for a Cinderella moment. She could see the glass coach turning back into a pumpkin right before her eyes.

  Sometimes reality truly was a bitch.

  “Like I said, this is my daughter, Lizzie. She’s fourteen years old and she knows more about running a business than I do at almost forty. If you give Lizzie the job specs, she’ll run up a proposal in less time than it would take you to drink a cup of coffee and split a deep-dish apple pie with your friend Anton. She handles contracts, billing, and balancing the checkbook for everyone in our family.” She paused for breath. “Yes, it’s unorthodox but that’s the way it is. And if any or all of this makes you uncomfortable, you can still have coffee and deep-dish apple and we’ll say good-bye.”

  She looked at Finn.

  Finn looked at Lizzie.

  Lizzie looked at both of them.

  “Draw up a proposal, Lizzie,” Finn said, “and let’s get this thing moving.”

  4

  “That’s the fourth time,” Lizzie said as she tapped away at the computer.

  “Fourth time what?” Finn asked, swiveling around to face the teenage wunderkind.

  “You keep turning around to stare at my mom.”

  “No, I don’t.” He hadn’t had time to build up to staring. Every time he turned Hayley’s way, she had caught him looking at her and he had to pretend he was checking the clock.

  “Yes, you do, and now you’re staring at me.”

  “I’m not staring,” Finn said. “I’m trying to read over your shoulder.”

  “I don’t think so,” Lizzie said. “You’d have to stand behind me to read over my shoulder. You’re staring at my face.”

  “Sorry.”

  “If you’re looking for a family resemblance, you might as well quit now. There isn’t one,” she said matter-of-factly as she resumed her rapid-fire typing. “That’s why you were staring, right? In case you’re wondering, I don’t look like my father either.”

  “I think you look a lot like your mother.”

  “Nope.” She peered at the screen, then fiddled with the touchpad. “I don’t look much like anyone in the family. I’m a genetic anomaly.”

  No, you’re not, Lizzie. You don’t know it yet, but you look just like your grandfather. From the huge, sleepy-lidded blue-green eyes to the stubborn chin to the slightly off-kilter smile, she was a Stiles through and through.

  He couldn’t remember ever feeling like a bigger bastard than he did right now. There were things you shouldn’t know about people. And you definitely shouldn’t know those things before the people had the chance to find out for themselves.

  Laughter floated toward them from the center of the kitchen where Anton, scrubbed and draped in a white cotton apron and plastic food-service gloves, worked with Hayley at the bench. She really did know how to make magic with cake and frosting: two rectangular layers of carrot cake were turning into a modern-day Colonial house right before his eyes.

  Unfortunately, the other thing happening right before his eyes was a whole lot less than magical.

  Anton, usually not big on taking direction, had settled happily into the secondary position, doing whatever she told him, the moment she told him to do it.

  And Hayley, the same woman who had practically made him take a lie detector test before she agreed to accept the
job, was all relaxed and easy with Anton, a bald-headed, leather-wearing, tattooed rocker she had known for less than an hour.

  He wouldn’t have figured Anton was her type.

  Which begged the question: what was her type…and why wasn’t he on the short list?

  Not that it mattered. He wasn’t there on a social call. He was there because Tommy asked him to be there.

  “That cake’s okay,” Lizzie said, following his gaze and fortunately misinterpreting the intent. “But you should see the swans she did for a wedding last year.” She paused. “Unless you’re looking at my mom again.”

  “That’s a great cake,” he said, sidestepping the issue. “Where’d your mom learn how to do that?”

  Lizzie shrugged. “She’s been working here since forever. Grandpa Goldstein pulled her off the counter and into the kitchen when she was a senior in high school.” Tap-tap-tap on the keyboard. “She took art classes when I was little. The rest she figured out on her own.”

  “Are you going to follow in her footsteps?”

  “I like working in the store but I’m going to be a scientist like my grandmother.”

  “Which discipline?” Like he didn’t have Jane’s CV memorized.

  “Oceanographer,” Lizzie said with obvious pride. “She gives lectures all around the world.” She looked up from the screen. “I need your name for the proposal.”

  “I’m Finn Rafferty, but I’m not your customer. Tommy Stiles is.”

  “Which one of you is the famous guy?”

  He could hear Hayley’s horrified gasp across the room. Apparently Mrs. Goldstein had been listening…

  “Elizabeth! Tell Mr. Rafferty you’re kidding.”

  Lizzie’s brow furrowed. “I’m not kidding. I just wanted to know which one of them is famous.”

  Anton’s laugh rang out. “Good thing Tom’s back in the Hamptons.”