He’d deal with reinforcing proper sportsmanship for losers later. Right now, it was making Kat laugh.
And he had questions he wanted answers to.
The judges had already left the set, their job long done, so there was only one fish to catch. And potentially fry.
“Sam.” He caught the host’s suit-clad arm lightly in one hand, but firm enough to let the guy know he meant business. “Got a minute?” It wasn’t a question. It was happening.
“Sure. Sorry about the loss.” Sam crossed his arms, sidestepping slightly out of the way of the crowd of squealing ballerinas surrounding Piper and Amanda. “Win some, lose some, right?”
Sam’s plastic persona was gone, and it was man-to-man now. Sam better step up. “Listen, I want to know what happened. Just between us.” Lucas lowered his voice an octave, even as he stood an inch taller. “Because we both know Kat had this one nailed.”
Sam started to protest, and Lucas tilted his head, pinning him with his gaze. The host rolled his eyes. “Okay, you don’t have to get all jock on me. I don’t get paid enough for that kind of drama.”
Lucas snorted. “Go on.”
“It’s your friend’s fault.”
“Kat? What did she do?” Nothing that he’d noticed, and he’d helped her bake enough cupcakes to know if something had gone wrong. Had one of the boys somehow accidentally messed up a batter? But no, Kat had tasted everything before it even hit the ovens—and then tasted it again afterward, risking the time element of losing cupcakes in exchange for quality control. They weren’t guilty of any mistakes.
Sam practically whispered the revelation. “She actually won.”
Now he’d lost him. Lucas shifted his weight, his gaze darting to Kat across the room, still surrounded by his players. “What do you mean?”
Sam shook his head, eyes heavy and serious. “You can’t hit on the judges. They don’t take bribes—even from contestants as pretty as Kat.”
“Bribes? Are you kidding me?” He’d forgotten to lower his voice that time, but the congratulatory noise still sufficiently drowned out his shock. “She didn’t bribe anybody.”
“Maybe you don’t know her as well as you think, then, because she offered Thad—well, let’s just say she made him a pretty good deal.” Sam smirked, and Lucas clenched his fists at his sides. He couldn’t punch the guy until he finished talking. But no, he didn’t deserve the hit. Thad did. The lying, cheating—
“Of course, Thad refused,” Sam continued, waving his hand flippantly like they weren’t discussing the moral ethics of the woman Lucas loved. “We don’t take that kind of thing lightly. It hasn’t been the first time, let me assure you. And if we’d had found out earlier in the competition, she’d have been disqualified. As it is, we can keep it quiet now to save her the embarrassment. We don’t need that kind of negative rating.”
Of all the . . . Lucas gritted his teeth. “She didn’t come on to Thad. It was the other way around.”
“Right.” Sam nodded his head, and Lucas vaguely reconsidered knocking the obnoxious, superior expression off the host’s face. “Look, it’s too late for the he-said, she-said game. Thad has been a judge on this show for years. His track record is impeccable.”
Probably because he’d never been caught. Hadn’t Sam just said this wasn’t the first time? “I’m telling you the truth, here. Why would I lie?”
“Why would you lie?” The host scoffed. “To win the grand prize, of course. I’m not stupid, man. Look, I’m sorry it all worked out the way it did, but someone has to lose. At least this way the reason is private, and Kat won’t have to go home with a bad reputation.”
No, just with a suitcase full of injustice. Lucas raked his hand through his hair. Frustration welled at the helplessness of it all. He couldn’t fix it. Kat had earned this, deserved it, and—now what? Was this God’s way of showing them both that Kat’s place was in Bayou Bend? It was just so unfair. Of all the ways to teach a lesson . . . there had to be something else he could do.
But Sam was walking away, and short of causing a scene that would embarrass them all, mostly Kat, he couldn’t do a thing about it.
For the first time in his life, Lucas didn’t have a single play to call.
Kat had almost forgotten about the postshow wrap-up interviews, the ones that would be clipped and cut and sprinkled throughout the show’s airing. Now that she’d been on this side of television, she could only imagine how the contestants’ words were twisted or manipulated slightly—or significantly—for dramatic effect.
Great.
She climbed onto the burgundy director’s chair and crossed her legs one way, then another. She didn’t want to do this; she just wanted to go home. No, not home. Not yet. She wanted to go back to her hotel and hide.
The walls of the small, behind-the-set room were painted beige and boasted the show’s logo in bold colors. They seemed to be closing in on her. She rubbed her palms against the knees of her jeans as the camera crew prepared their equipment. A red-shirted staff member appeared with a compact and brush. “Touch-up?”
Wouldn’t help. What she really needed was waterproof mascara. She nodded anyway, like her heart wasn’t currently in the middle of a free fall. Where was Lucas? Why weren’t the assistant bakers required to do this stuff?
Several other people were in the room, including the cameraman and Hal, one of the network’s employees who always conducted the interviews off camera, but she’d never felt so impossibly alone.
Sudden laughter and cheers rang from the set, located somewhere behind her and the wall. Celebratory cries from Piper and her team, no doubt, who were being briefed on what would happen next regarding the ballet fund-raiser, the transfer of the five hundred cupcakes, and the start of Piper’s internship at Bloom.
That could have been her in there, hugging Lucas with joy, crumpling confetti under her feet and making plans.
Well, maybe not hugging Lucas. He probably wouldn’t have been in much of a party mode if she’d won. Still, he’d signed her up for the competition in the first place. How could he be all that upset over the idea of her leaving Bayou Bend, anyway? Or was he just concerned she wouldn’t succeed without him? Afraid she couldn’t navigate New York on her own or handle men with agendas like Thad’s?
She’d already proven she could if she had to.
Now she just didn’t have to.
Reality lapped at the edges of her heart. She widened her eyes to ward off the tears barreling toward her lids like a tsunami. It was just a contest—one competition. Not her entire future. That pink envelope had held the results of three people’s opinions. It didn’t determine her value or worth as a person, or even necessarily as a chef.
So why did it feel like it did exactly that?
The assistant dabbed Kat’s face with powder, swept on some subtle pink blush, and then fluffed her hair around her shoulders. “Better.”
Doubtful, but the encouragement helped ease her nerves slightly. She smiled her thanks as the girl slipped out of the room and Hal took the chair across from Kat. Too bad they didn’t have makeup to completely camouflage her emotions.
“Okay, we’re ready. Just act naturally and tell the truth.” The scruffy-bearded cameraman angled the giant black camera toward her, pausing to adjust a setting before tilting it slightly to the right. “Don’t worry about whether or not you say the wrong thing or stutter. We can edit all that out.”
She just bet they could.
Hal smiled at her, but it was businesslike and brief. “State your full name and what round you were just eliminated from, please.”
She swallowed, mouth dry. “I’m Kat Varland, and I was just eliminated from the final round.” Nothing like ripping off the Band-Aid. Maybe the questions wouldn’t prick as bad from here on. Maybe they’d have some kind of postshow mercy.
Hal nodded with approval. “Good. Now, how did you feel when you heard the other team’s name being announced as the winner?”
Nope. Kat reeled
back against the chair, the question digging deep and scraping a fingernail against her insecurities. Yet Hal threw it out there like he was asking how she liked her coffee. How did she feel? Hurt. Devastated. Shocked. “I was surprised.”
“Why so? You assumed you would win?” Hal quirked a bushy eyebrow.
“Not assumed. It was a fair competition.” Kat shrugged. “I don’t know, I just . . . had a feeling. I really thought I had it.”
He nodded like he’d heard that a dozen times. He probably had—but did that make it any less true? “Did you have fun? Try to answer in complete sentences, by the way, for the editors.”
Sure, because that made her feel a lot more natural. She tossed her hair off her shoulder and thought before she spoke. “I had a lot of fun taping the show.” It was definitely the safe answer, if not an entirely truthful one. There had been a lot of fun times, but Piper sabotaging her efforts and finding out about Lucas’s near attempt at being a traitor and Thad hitting on her in the back alley hadn’t been fun—at all.
“I’ll be taking several good memories and pieces of advice from the judges home with me.” There. Compliment the judges’ expertise for TV. That was a safe way to avoid having much of her wrap-up comments aired. Or if they were aired, at least she would come off as a professional baker and not an overly emotional woman on the verge of bursting into tears.
What did they expect her to do? Rag on how awful Piper was and stoop to the girl’s petty sabotaging level? It wasn’t how she played the game, and it didn’t matter anymore, anyway. Piper had won, and anything Kat said negatively about her now would just reflect badly on Kat.
Hal leaned forward in his chair. “Do you think you deserved to go home or deserved to win?”
Man, these guys didn’t play fair. Kat shifted in her seat, avoiding the camera’s “eye.” That red light on the side was starting to unnerve her. It seemed so unforgiving. “I don’t think either of us deserved to go home. But someone had to.”
A muscle in his jaw twitched knowingly. “You’re happy with the outcome then?”
No. But she wouldn’t express the contrary to the entire world at large. No point. “I think Piper is a great chef. I didn’t get to taste any of her cupcakes, but her decorations were always top-notch.” She offered a half-grin. “And everything she baked always smelled good.”
Hal chuckled. “Nice. Most contestants say something along opposite lines.”
Kat shrugged. “Not my style.” She couldn’t stoop to that, though she was beyond curious what Piper would say in her interview.
“So . . . now what?”
She stared at the camera, the question spiraling between them like a smoky mirage. Now what?
Hal tilted his head, waiting for her to pick up the conversation, then tried again as she continued to blink. “What’s next for Kat Varland?”
What was next? Wasn’t it obvious?
“Vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry, I guess.”
twenty-six
She’d slept the entire way to Los Angeles, yet today, when she needed the anonymity of sleep, the bliss of unconsciousness, her eyes were as wide open as if she’d just downed a gallon of espresso.
Kat leaned her forehead against the small circular window of the airplane, staring down at the puff of clouds below, dark and barely visible now in the early evening dusk. The football team had been scheduled on a different flight, and she wasn’t sure if she was grateful to be left alone from what would have surely been incessant chatting, or if she’d have welcomed the distraction. Regardless, in a few hours, she’d be back in Bayou Bend. Back to normal. Back to vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry.
As if nothing had ever happened.
But everything had happened.
Beside her, Lucas shifted, struggling to prop his ankle on his knee in the cramped seating arrangement. He’d tried to make small talk earlier, and she’d all but blown him off. She wasn’t up for reliving the trip or hearing platitudes that only made her ache worse. She’d lost. That was that.
Now, not only would she have to face her family and her hometown as a failure, she’d gained—and lost—ground with Lucas that could never be recovered.
Everything had happened.
The plane banked slightly left, tilting them away from the clouds, and she watched them disappear from the window, the glass now framing a navy sky. Behind her, a baby fussed, then quieted after a desperate shushing from its mother. She felt shushed as well.
“You want a Coke?” Lucas leaned closer to ask her, hogging the armrest. She drew her arm against her side and shook her head as the flight attendant approached their row.
“No, I’m fine.”
“You didn’t eat lunch. And I bet you didn’t eat breakfast before going to the studio this morning, either.” He nudged her. “Kat. Don’t hide.”
She wasn’t. Though she probably would if she could. “I’m not hiding. I’m right here.” She turned to look out the window again. The plane had leveled, and the clouds were back. Darker, and thinner this time. More wisps than puffs.
“I don’t know how to tell you this.”
She swiveled back to face him. “Tell me what?” Oh no. Tell her that he was glad she lost? Tell her he was sorry she lost? Tell her he regretted everything that had transpired between them on this cursed trip?
Did she regret it?
No. Not entirely. Maybe there was a shadow of regret, but only because of what they’d lost in trying to gain more. She’d always have the memories.
Which was both good and bad.
Lucas adjusted his seat back an inch. “Maybe I shouldn’t.”
“Little late now.” She shifted to face him, sliding her purse out of the way with her foot. “You can’t do that.”
“I know.” He sighed, rubbing his hand over his jaw. “I talked to Sam after the show. I wanted to see if I could figure out what happened.”
“I lost. That’s what happened.” Not a whole lot to it—though the look in Piper’s eyes after they’d all filed off the set still registered as . . . odd. It wasn’t nearly as gleeful as she’d expected. In fact, she’d expected haughty, proud, boastful. But oh well. It didn’t matter now.
“Kat, you won.”
Apparently the stress of the trip had gotten to him. “No, pretty sure that confetti was dumped straight over Piper’s head.”
Lucas didn’t even blink. He just looked her straight in the eye. “Sam said so.”
A sudden gust of turbulence shook the plane. The overhead bins rattled, but not nearly as much as the news rocked Kat. “Lucas. What are you talking about? I just did a loser’s interview”—she checked her watch—“four hours ago. Pretty sure they would have told me if all of that was a mistake.”
“It’s because of Thad.”
The plane dipped again, and she gripped the armrests, her fingernails digging into the hard material. “Are you serious?” But she knew. He couldn’t—wouldn’t—make that up.
“Two of the three judges voted for you, but Thad came out with what happened between you. He turned the story around, Kat. You were technically disqualified, but because it was the final round, they just let you lose and save face.”
What? Disqualified? Lucas’s words bounced off her ears but didn’t compute. “Save face?” The words sputtered off her lips, out of her control. So was her increasing volume. “I didn’t do anything wrong! He came on to me.”
“I know, Kat.” Lucas’s low-set tone reminded her to lower hers. And breathe. “Trust me, I know.”
Now it made sense why Lucas looked so exhausted. He’d been carrying this information ever since they’d left the studio. Why hadn’t he told her sooner? Well, probably because she could have very likely, in her state of embarrassment, exhaustion, and indignation, made a scene and humiliated herself or his team.
The overhead intercom squawked. “Good afternoon, passengers, this is your captain speaking. Just wanted to apologize for the bit of turbulence we’re experiencing.” The plane shuddered
on cue, and Kat caught Lucas’s eyes.
His gaze held more baggage than the luggage carousel in LAX. “I’m sorry, Kat.”
It wasn’t entirely obvious what exactly he was apologizing for, since none of it was his fault. Not a single bit of it—except maybe for getting them on the show in the first place. But somehow, she sort of knew.
She nodded, licking her suddenly dry lips. “Me too.”
The captain spoke again, his deep voice vibrating throughout the cabin. “I’d like everyone to keep their seat belts on for the duration of the flight. Unfortunately, it looks like we’re in for a bumpy ride.”
No kidding.
Back on the football field.
Like the past week had never happened, like his world for six days had never consisted of arguments and kisses and cheaters and liars.
He really would be perfectly happy if he never saw another cupcake again. His new dessert default could be brownies. Or cheesecake. Or oatmeal raisin cookies.
Except Kat didn’t bake those, so that was already an epic fail.
Lucas blew his whistle, interrupting the practice game. “Guys, look alive. I know you’re tired from the trip, but we have to get our heads back in the game.” Advice he needed to tattoo on his own forehead. “Try that run again. Garrison, your defense needs some strength. Dupree, watch your six on that last play. You had a shadow and never even knew it.”
“Welcome back, Coach.”
Lucas jumped and turned to see Darren behind him, grinning and chomping on his gum. Talk about having a shadow.
He smiled, feeling relief for the first time all day. “Hey, man.” He pulled his friend into a back-pounding hug. “Long time.” He stood back, taking in his standard fire department polo and slacks. Then he called to Coach Kent to take over.
“You on call?”
“Just came from the station. Had to debrief the guys after a rough run.” Darren popped a hot pink bubble, the gum neon against his cocoa-colored skin. “Fatality on the highway. Wasn’t pretty.”
All’s Fair In Love and Cupcakes Page 24