by Anthology
The only thing love had transformed her into was someone who made a fool of herself after a few shots of tequila.
Looking at Frannie, Charlotte couldn’t help but be envious at the look of a woman who knew she was loved.
Frannie continued, “Actually, speaking of the right person, didn’t I see you getting cozy with a certain Army captain in Tori’s last night?” She elbowed Charlotte in the ribs.
“Oh God, did you?”
“Oh yeah. And the way you two were looking at each other… whew, I may have to fan myself just thinking about it.” Frannie must have seen the incomprehension on Charlotte’s face, because she frowned and said, “Don’t you remember?”
Before Charlotte could admit the embarrassing fact that she remembered very little of the night before, her attention was caught by a new arrival standing in the doorway. It wasn’t so much who it was—Leslie Borden, the owner of Apples and Pier, a bakery down by the water that Leslie seemed to think was some kind of competition for Hot Cakes even though Leslie didn’t do wedding cakes—rather, it was how Leslie was dressed that caught Charlotte’s attention.
She was wearing sweatpants and a ratty, paint-stained t-shirt. Her hair was in a messy mop on top of her head, and—Charlotte gasped as Leslie turned her way—she had mascara tracks all under her eyes and makeup smudges down her cheeks.
Not exactly wedding attire.
Charlotte stepped forward, thinking she’d ask Leslie if she needed help before any of the dancing and mingling guests noticed her. They weren’t friends—far from it, as Leslie often regarded Charlotte with an annoying air of superiority—but Charlotte could recognize a woman in trouble, and there was probably some rule in the sisterhood about that: thou shalt not leave another to stand looking crazed and homeless at a wedding one is crashing.
But right then Leslie’s gaze zeroed in on Charlotte, and she froze, feeling very much like a small animal sighted by a predator. Even from across the room, Leslie’s expression screamed for blood.
“Um, Frannie?” Was it possible Charlotte was imagining this?
“Yes, I’m seeing this too.” Frannie gripped her arm. “Do you think we should… run?”
Apparently Charlotte wasn’t the only one making mental comparisons to predators and blood sport.
“I think you should save yourself. It looks like I’m her target, though I can’t imagine why.” Charlotte couldn’t even remember the last time they’d exchanged more than a few words.
Leslie had started weaving her way around tables toward Charlotte, stalking her. Heads began to turn as people noticed the spectacle in the making.
“I don’t think this is going to end well.” Charlotte felt Frannie’s grip tighten, but the world had narrowed to the extremely enraged woman approaching her like a laser-guided missile. “Thirty seconds until detonation.”
Leslie stopped only a foot in front of Charlotte, breathing hard, her eyes bloodshot, her lips curled in a feral twist. “You.” For all that rage, Leslie’s voice came out in a low snarl. “You… bitch.”
Next to her, Frannie gasped, and Charlotte recoiled, as much from the insult as from the fumes off alcohol pouring off Leslie. “Listen, Leslie, I’m not sure what this is about—”
“You’re not sure?” Leslie’s voice went up an octave. “It’s about last night!”
Last night.
Oh no…
There was only one thing Charlotte had done last night. But why would Leslie be upset, unless…
Unless Brad and Leslie were a thing.
For a moment, Charlotte thought she might be physically sick.
Chapter Three
This couldn’t be happening.
Leslie continued, the anger in her voice grating over Charlotte now like cut glass, “It’s about you ruining everything and wrecking a relationship that is none of your business.”
Charlotte’s heart sank. When Leslie didn’t look like she’d just come off a three-day bender in Ragey-Crazy Town, she was actually exactly the type Charlotte would have matched Brad with: tall, built like a Victoria’s Secret model, lustrous dark brown hair, and a sexy pout she’d no doubt spent hours perfecting in front of a mirror.
But Brad had only been back in town for two days, so… they must have started seeing each other before he deployed. Charlotte hadn’t heard anything about them dating, but then again, neither Brad nor Leslie were likely to make a point to tell her something like that when it had probably been obvious how she felt about Brad even before he left. She remembered Leslie had gone through a dramatic and public divorce last summer, and everyone in town had heard the rumor that she’d been cheating on her husband.
The last piece of the puzzle clicked in place. It must have been with Brad.
It was like a punch to the gut. It hurt that much to think he could have stepped into the middle of someone else’s marriage. This was the man who had continued taking baking classes from Charlotte after he’d stopped seeing the woman whom Charlotte always thought had dragged him there in the first place. She suspected he kept going to class because he felt bad for her that the class had so few people. This was the man who often stayed late with her to help her clean up after class, sharing a cup of coffee and letting her ramble on and on about her extensive family scattered around the bay area or her plans to grow her business. This was the man who’d driven her to the hospital the night they’d been having coffee and her brother called to tell her that her nephew swallowed a tack.
This was also the man who made her fall in love with him, looking at her that last time before he deployed as if his very life depended on memorizing the sight of her, and then he turned away. This was the man who told her it’d be better if she didn’t when she asked if she could write to him. She’d been too hurt to ask why not. And this was the man who never responded when she ignored him and wrote him a silly letter confessing her hopeless love for him.
And just like that, Charlotte was angry too. Maybe not psycho-Leslie angry, but the idea that she spent nine long months of being sick with worry and love over some jerk was enough to send fire cascading through her veins.
She refocused on Leslie, who still stood in front of her, eyes narrowed as if she was waiting for Charlotte to explain herself.
Like hell.
“I don’t think I’m the one who wrecked things, you know?” Sure, it was a little nasty, but Charlotte thought under the circumstances she was allowed.
The air around them seem to grow still, and then Leslie let out this inhuman shriek-wail that sent shivers crawling along Charlotte’s skin and made Frannie dig her nails into the skin of Charlotte’s upper arm.
Leslie didn’t extend clawlike hands to rip Charlotte’s face off, or heave and huff until she grew ten times as big before her tentacles pulled a ship down into the ocean, or gleefully cackle as she picked out the dog she was going to skin for a coat.
All of these would have been equally non-surprising.
Surprised, Charlotte watched as what Leslie actually did was whirl away, stomping forward instead of toward the door. “What, is she going to go slap the bride because I made her mad?” That made about as much sense as anything.
“Charlotte, no,” Frannie said, her nails still digging into Charlotte’s arm. “Your cake.” Tall, even without the intricately designed cake stand, the cake drew the eye with its regal bearing.
“She wouldn’t do anything to my cake.” But there was no denying what direction Leslie was moving in.
“She totally is.” They both watched as Leslie moved around tables, homing in on her target. As she passed elderly Mrs. Swinson, Leslie reached down and snatched the cane that was resting against her chair. Leslie continued her march toward the cake, carrying the cane now like a club.
“Not on my watch.” Charlotte started forward, not hearing if Frannie replied, not caring who was looking, not thinking of anything other than getting to her cake before Leslie the Destroyer did.
Charlotte definitely wasn’t thinking about B
rad, or Leslie and Brad, or Brad and not-Charlotte.
She’d like to think what happened next never would have happened over a man. But over chocolate ganache and caramel cheesecake mousse?
Who wouldn’t tackle somebody over that?
By the time Charlotte caught up to Leslie, she’d wound up that cane like she was trying out for the Yankees and was going to send that cake over the fence.
So Charlotte did the only thing she could think of to save her cake. She rammed her body full on into Leslie, hurtling them both to the floor—luckily, in the opposite direction of the cake. They skidded into a chair and table leg with their combined momentum, and Charlotte lay there for a moment, stunned, trying to decide if she’d broken, well, everything.
But not Leslie. She rose from the ground, unfazed, like a demon possessed, and advanced on the cake once more. Charlotte grabbed her leg to stop her, but Leslie shook her off as easily as she would a gnat.
“Is this woman even human?” Charlotte muttered as she scrambled to her feet, ignoring the parts of her body that protested.
That would be every part.
Charlotte was vaguely aware that the music had stopped and voices were approaching, but they were too late. Leslie had managed to somehow hold on to the cane, and she brought it back and swung like she was Derek Jeter.
If she had hit the heavier bottom tier, it probably would have just knocked the cake over. But the way Leslie hit that top tier, the force she hit it with, it looked like that tier exploded and sent flakes of sugar, frosting, and cake raining down around them.
Leslie wasn’t the only one on her way to Ragey-Crazy Town now.
Charlotte let out a war cry as Leslie pulled the cane back for another swing. She never got the chance, though, because this time Charlotte jumped on her back.
Leslie let out a howl, and that was when Charlotte’s actions totally backfired.
Instead of backpedaling away from the cake, Leslie, with Charlotte still on her back, stumbled forward and they both went crashing down.
Falling into what was left of the cake.
Charlotte hit her head on the table they crashed into, and then she was on the floor again. Only this time she had cake in her hair, and when she opened her eyes—well, one eye, because there was cake in the other—it was to see a crowd of people circled around her, staring open-mouthed in what she assumed was shock and horror. She looked away, noticing Leslie was doing this limping-crawl thing away from… the destruction.
Holy moly, the destruction.
The table her masterpiece had been sitting on not ten minutes before was now resting drunkenly on its side, and there was a sea of cake surrounding Charlotte. It was like something out of her nightmares.
Only worse, because even in her nightmares, it would never have been her fault.
A hand appeared in Charlotte’s vision. Grateful for the help, she clasped it and started to leverage herself up before tracing her eyes from the hand to the muscular arm covered in green to the broad shoulder to the face with the intense brown eyes.
Realizing it was Brad, the man responsible for this all, who was helping her up made Charlotte recoil.
Which is probably something you’re not supposed to do when someone is in the middle of hoisting you to your feet.
Brad manfully struggled with gravity after the unexpected momentum change, but Charlotte’s feet slid forward in the cake. It was ultimately a struggle he lost.
Luckily for Charlotte’s abused body, he only landed partially on her.
Unluckily for Brad, he was wearing his dress uniform.
And now cake.
Hey, that was still better than his underwear and a blanket, right?
Brad rolled off her and sat up, looking down at himself and sighing. He looked over at Charlotte, sweeping his eyes from the top of her head down to her cake-smudged sensible shoes. Always with the sensible shoes. She sighed too.
Brad asked, “Are you all right?”
“Define all right.”
The left corner of Brad’s mouth raised in this endearing little half-smile he did that always gave Charlotte a melty feeling in her stomach. Which she was not thinking about, not right now, no way. Not when everyone, especially the bride, were still looking at her with wide eyes and mouths hanging open.
She was a no-nonsense professional, though, and surely she could think of something, anything, to salvage the situation.
But then again, her professionalism had probably fled in fear when she’d let out that war cry.
Drawing a complete blank, Charlotte turned to Brad and blurted out the first thing that popped into her head: “You crashed their wedding.”
Chapter Four
The bride started crying.
And that was when Charlotte knew she was finished in this town. There was no coming back from this.
Intending to go lick her wounds in private, she climbed to her feet—only slipping and sliding a little—and said, “Okay, I’m just going to—”
But nobody was listening. It was as if the spell that had held the crowd entranced was broken and they were all talking at once, crowding around Winnie, the bride, who had turned her face into her new husband’s chest while he ran his hands up and down her back, murmuring the occasional “shhh.”
“Charlotte.” Brad was on his feet now too, cake mashed into his once-crisp dress uniform. A gumpaste calla lily was caught on his medals and ribbons, almost as if someone had pinned a slightly damaged boutonniere on his chest. A hysterical giggle escaped her mouth and Brad looked at her in alarm. “We need to—”
Charlotte held up her hand. “No.” She needed to get out of here before she completely lost it. She slipped by him, leaving him staring after her for the second time today, and wound her way through the throng of people toward the door. Leslie was nowhere in sight. Passing Frannie, Charlotte just shook her head when it looked like Frannie would stop her. They could laugh and cry about this later.
Mostly cry.
Charlotte stepped outside, blinking in the evening sun and started walking down the street toward Hot Cakes, thinking she had a better chance of making it there than home. She walked faster and gulped in deep breaths of pungent lake air, wondering if she was going to break down like a total basket case right there on Main Street. Practically running up the front stairs of her bakery, tears blurred her vision as she jabbed the key toward the lock. Fumbling, she dropped them, but then Brad was there too, picking the keys up, unlocking the door, ushering her inside.
Sliding his arms around her and pulling her into the comfort of his chest.
“Shhh. You’ll be all right.” Brad held her tight. “Go ahead and cry if you need to.”
And so she did, right there in front of her display case of sample wedding cakes she’d probably never get hired to make again. That just made her cry harder.
They weren’t pretty tears, either. They were hoarse, aching sobs ripped from her gut, as nine months of misery poured out of her. Once the storm subsided, Brad reached over and snagged a tissue for her from the box on her counter.
“Aren’t you going to apologize?” Charlotte demanded, mopping her face up with the tissue.
His eyebrows rose. “For what?”
“For what?” Was he really going to make her say it? “How about for being the worst, ever?”
He snorted. “That’s not what you said last night.”
Charlotte gasped. How dare he go there. “Yeah, well, I didn’t know about your girlfriend last night, now did I?”
Brow furrowed now, he said, “What are you talking about?”
“Your girlfriend! Babe Ruthing my cake and my career because she found out I slept with you.”
Brad shook his head as if he was confused, but the side of his mouth curled up.
He was actually smiling.
And Charlotte felt another one of those war cries rising in her throat.
“I’m not real sure what’s going on here, but last night was the first time I met her—L
eslie something, right? You introduced us.”
Charlotte opened her mouth, then closed it again. That didn’t make any sense. “But… she was so angry. Because of last night. And the only thing I did last night was… ” Her cheeks heated.
“Take shameless advantage of me?” Brad grinned.
Charlotte groaned. “It’s official. My embarrassment is now terminal.”
Brad’s grin faded as he considered her. “You don’t remember.”
“How could anyone remember anything after that much tequila?”
“I think I had more to drink than you, and I remember everything.” His voice deepened, and Charlotte suppressed a shiver at the intimate note in it.
“Well, give yourself a cookie. I don’t drink often, and I’m not even sure I’ve ever had that much to drink in one night.” She paused, breathing a sigh of relief as it sank in that Brad was not that guy—not that guy who got in the middle of someone else’s marriage, not that guy who slept with her when he was attached to another woman.
But, Charlotte reminded herself, he was that guy who never answered her letter. She pushed that thought away and said, “I remember bits and pieces of the night, but I don’t remember talking to Leslie last night at all.”
“We ran into her outside of Tori’s. She was with a guy. They were”—Brad coughed—“very cozy.”
“And?”
“You told her you were glad she found someone new, and you hoped she wouldn’t cheat on him like she did the last guy.”
“Oh my gosh, I really said that?” Charlotte couldn’t believe she’d been so bitchy. It was so unlike her. “Wait, that’s what sent her into a full-blown Lizzie Borden episode?”
Brad shrugged. “I guess. The guy—Tom?—got mad and took off, and she went racing after him. That’s all I remember.”
“Tom? Are you sure that was his name?” At Brad’s nod, Charlotte groaned. “Tom was the last guy.”
“What?”
“Tom is the ex-husband she cheated on.”
Brad whistled. “I don’t think he knew that.”
“Everybody in town knew that,” Charlotte said. “They got divorced.”