Borrowing a Bachelor

by Karen Kendall

  “Seven o’clock,” she said. “Time to sell the doughnuts.” She shot Nikki a look of maternal tolerance. “And really, honeybun. Have a little faith.”

  Huh. As soon as she was sure she wouldn’t cry into the muffin batter, Nikki began spooning it into paper muffin cups while Tara checked on the coffee in preparation for the morning rush. She’d gone to the back room to put on the music when the door chimes rang, signaling that a customer had come in.

  Nikki wiped her hands and went to wait on the person. He was tall and about her age, and something about his face and his bowlegged stance was familiar. He had sandy, curly hair and a very ruddy complexion, as if he worked outdoors all day.

  “Hi,” he said. “I’m Gib Tanner. Is Mrs. Fine here?”

  “Just a moment,” said Nikki. “I’ll get her.”

  As she went to get her mother, she realized where she’d seen the guy before—at that awful bachelor party. She hunched her shoulders and thanked heaven that she was wearing her hair tied back and no makeup. He didn’t seem to have recognized her. Why was he here? Was it an unfortunate coincidence?

  “Mom. Someone to see you,” she called.

  Tara went up front. Since the music was now on, Nikki couldn’t hear exactly what was said, but she did catch the words roof and crew and Saturday. What was going on?

  Then the door chimes tinkled again and her mother appeared in the kitchen looking dazed.

  “What was that about?” Nikki asked.

  “That boy, Gib Tanner? He’s coming with a crew to work on my roof next Saturday.”

  “Say what?”

  Tara nodded. “That’s exactly what he said.”

  “Huh? Who recommended him? What’s his estimate? And how are you going to pay him?”

  Tara shook her head. “There’s no estimate. No bill. He said a friend of yours sent him, a fraternity brother of his, and not to worry about anything. He’d get me all fixed up.”

  “What?”

  “He has a construction company, he says. Him and his dad.”

  “They’re doing this free?”

  “Well…I guess so. He said all he needed was permission to go on the property.”

  “Wait a minute. This is crazy, Mom. Stuff like this doesn’t happen.”

  “Apparently it does.” Tara still looked dazed, but she glanced heavenward and her lips moved.

  “Is this Gib person licensed? Insured? Bonded?”

  “He showed me a bunch of papers to do with that.”

  “Were they real?”

  “Nikki!”

  “Well? Seriously. And who is this supposed friend of mine?” Nikki found herself getting more and more agitated. The Gib guy had been at the bachelor party, no doubt about it. “What’s the name of my friend?”

  “Adam, he said.”

  “Adam?” Nikki choked. “Adam’s a jerk and he doesn’t have any money.”

  “Who is Adam?”

  “A jerk, like I said.” Nikki’s head spun.

  “He can’t be too much of a jerk if he’s doing this, sweetie.”

  Nikki growled something about ulterior motives and stomped out of the kitchen. Should she call him? What was his motive? How could he be paying for this? Or did the Gib guy owe him a favor? If so, it had to be one serious favor—like hiding a body or something.

  Hadn’t there been some mob-run construction company in the news recently when a bunch of corpses were found under a parking garage?

  Right. And Gib looked so very Italian…not. What did she think, that the name Tanner was Sicilian?

  Well, but it could have been shortened at Ellis Island from, um, Tanzale or Tantofino or Tiramisu.

  Okay, she was an idiot. Gib looked as Scots/Irish as it was possible to get, and Tanner was most likely English in origin.

  She was so confused. She would not call Adam. He was the reason she’d gotten fired. But—

  Why had he done this?

  This was way too elaborate for an apology. This was rooted in something else. But what?

  Nikki grabbed her cell phone and dialed half his number before snapping the phone closed. Then she dropped it into her pocket and went back to portioning out the muffin batter.

  She refused to make contact with him. And if he so much as polluted the screen of her phone with his number, she’d bake it along with the muffins.

  21

  ADAM STOOD IN THE MEN’S room and splashed cold water on his face repeatedly before drying off with a paper towel, replacing his glasses and steeling himself for the hour ahead. He and Dev had an appointment to see Dean Trammel. Goal: the reinstatement of Nikki’s job.

  He straightened his collar and lapels in the mirror and practiced his most winning sixteen-tooth smile, which would do absolutely no good if Dev didn’t give the performance of his life and flash his eighteen-tooth smile, in which the corners of his mouth almost nudged his ears.

  Adam had made Dev rehearse his role of graphic designer over and over, and one of Hal Underwood’s employees had provided him with an entire portfolio of his work, plus the fake originals of a different girl’s head on Nikki’s body and a different guy’s head on Adam’s.

  Dev, who stood at the urinals behind him, finished his whiz biz and zipped up. Then he came to wash his hands.

  “You ready to rock, Mr. Photoshop?” Adam asked him.

  Dev cracked his neck and eyed his preppy new look in the mirror with disgust. “Yeah. I want to get this over with before my balls turn tartan and my ’Vette morphs into a Volvo.”

  Adam rolled his eyes. “Remember, the tall bony crone is Margaret, and she’s in charge of the Perez scholarship stuff. Work your magic on her. Tell her you hear she makes the best cheesecake in the country—lie and say I gave you a piece. Make her feel like Miss America.”

  “Done. Women love me—you know that.”

  “One of life’s great unsolved mysteries,” Adam muttered. “Come on. We need to get in there.”

  He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly as they left the men’s room and marched down the hallway to the dean’s office.

  Inside, Margaret sat at the reception desk in Nikki’s absence, looking none too happy about it.

  “Hi,” Adam said cautiously.

  “You,” she said, dismissing him with a flicker of her eyes.

  “Er, yes. It’s me, Adam Burke. And this is my friend Devon McKee. We have a two-o’clock appointment with the dean.”

  Dev shot her the eighteen-tooth grin that he’d perfected on so many women over the years. “Are you the culinary genius who makes that legendary cheesecake?”

  “Don’t try to butter me up,” she snapped.

  “Oh, no, ma’am. I’m serious as a heart attack. I dream about that cake.” Dev’s voice had dropped half an octave, into his signature nightclub croon. “Adam gave me a piece.”

  Margaret looked up and scanned Dev from head to toe while he made eyes at her, too. Dev had an enviable trick of seeming to stroke a woman with his gaze, lingering just a flattering touch too long on her best features, and then coming to rest at her eyes again, where he deepened his smile suggestively and quirked his lips.

  It was masterful, if nauseating to watch.

  “Mmm,” Dev said, leaving it open to interpretation whether he meant Margaret or the cake.

  Too much, Adam thought, but before his eyes Maggie actually fluttered her sparse eyelashes.

  Dev leaned forward, not enough to be completely obvious, but enough to suggest conspiracy. “I don’t suppose you’d share the recipe, would you?”

  Margaret’s color heightened; her cheeks flushed a delicate rose. “It’s a family thing. We keep it close to the vest.”

  Dev gazed into her raisinlike eyes for a beat too long before he averted them. “Lucky vest,” he murmured.

  Adam swallowed a snort. No, he did not just say that.

  Margaret’s mouth opened slightly and she put her hands up to her cheeks. Then she shook a finger at him.

  Dev leaned in a couple more in
ches. “You sure I can’t talk you out of it, hmm? It was the sweetest thing…all creamy and delicious.” His grin had widened until Adam could swear that twenty teeth were showing. All very white and professionally sincere.

  “You,” she said, shaking her head but dimpling.

  It was the polar opposite of the you she’d addressed to Adam when they came in.

  “You’re a naughty boy,” Margaret said.

  Adam prayed she wouldn’t offer to spank Dev right there and then.

  “No, ma’am,” Dev said. “I’m good. Good through and through.” He winked a bordello-blue eye. “Just like your tasty cake.”

  Under Adam’s disbelieving eyes, Margaret giggled.

  And just as he thought he’d hurl on his shoes, the door to the dean’s office opened; the man emerged.

  “Sir,” Margaret said, “these two young men are here to see you.”

  Adam smiled and stuck out his hand. “Yes, sir, we are.” He introduced himself and then Dev, and they followed Dean Trammel into his office, where he told them to take a seat.

  “How can I help you two?” the dean asked.

  “Well, sir, we’re here to clear up a misunderstanding,” Adam said. “Two days ago, as you may remember, some racy pictures were tacked to the bulletin board in the hall.”

  Dean Trammel’s eyes flashed with sudden recognition. “You were the boy in the pictures,” he said, frowning.

  “Well, sir, it did look that way.”

  Trammel raised his eyebrows. “You’re going to tell me that you have an evil twin? Come on, Mr. Burke. Pictures don’t lie.”

  “Excuse me, sir,” Dev said smoothly, “but there are times when they do.”

  Trammel crossed his arms across his chest and leaned back, his body language stating clearly, Oh, I can’t wait to hear this one.

  “You may have heard of Photoshop, sir?”

  The dean nodded curtly.

  “As a graphic designer I use it every day. And as an old fraternity brother of Adam’s, here, I used it to play a tasteless joke on him.”

  “Go on.”

  “Adam, see, is all work and no play. He studies constantly, sir, and any muscles he has are purely from hefting those fifty-pound medical texts of his.”

  Adam cut his eyes at Dev. Don’t lay it on too thick.

  “Well, anyway, a very good friend of ours got married last weekend, and Burke, here, refused even to go to the bachelor party because he had too much studying to do. We weren’t happy about that. So early this week, we decided to punk him.”

  “Punk?”

  “Er, play a prank on him. And see, I knew that he had this instant crush on a girl who worked here in your office. So, sir, I got a couple of shots of her while she was walking on campus, and I used Photoshop to put her head onto the body of the stripper from the bachelor party. Then I did the same thing with Adam’s head and the, um, bachelor’s body.”

  “That’s possible?”

  “Yes. I can show you the original photos if you’d like.” Dev patted the zipped black portfolio he’d brought with him.

  “That won’t be necessary,” the dean said. Then, “You pinned them to the bulletin board as a joke?”

  “Yes, sir.” Dev made a good show of looking shamefaced. “I didn’t think about the consequences, sir.”

  “No, you did not,” Trammel said scathingly. “I fired the poor girl.”

  Dev nodded unhappily. “That’s what I understand. I’m here, Dean Trammel, to ask you to reconsider. Because my actions harmed her unfairly—and harmed my friend Adam, as well. They are innocent parties in all of this, and I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

  Dean Trammel looked him over in silence. Then he looked at Adam, who met his gaze squarely. Trammel transferred his gaze back to Dev and blew out a disgusted breath. “Why don’t you try.”

  “Excuse me, sir?”

  “Try. Telling me—and Mr. Burke—how sorry you are.”

  “Ah. Yes.” Dev swallowed. “I apologize from the bottom of my heart, sir. I really do.” He turned to Adam. “I’m sorry I was a dirtbag.”

  “And a scum-sucking bottom-feeder,” Adam couldn’t help adding. “And a degenerate pig.”

  Trammel’s lips twitched.

  They waited for several beats in silence before the dean got up and rounded his desk, their cue to get up, as well.

  “Mr. Burke, I’m sorry that I leaped to conclusions. Thank you for being man enough to face me and explain. That can’t have been easy. Mr. McKee, I hope you’ll think about the possible consequences of your actions in the future. But likewise, thank you for your honesty. While I have no authority over you, since you’re not a student here, I would hope that you will also apologize profusely to Nikki Fine.”

  “Yes, sir. You can be sure of that.”

  “Excellent.” Trammel opened the door and gestured them out. “Gentlemen, have a nice day.”

  He turned to Margaret as they headed for the reception exit. “Will you get Nikki Fine on the phone for me? Thank you.”

  NIKKI CURLED INTO a fetal position after work, her feet throbbing from standing all day at the bakery. She closed her eyes and ignored the blinking red light on the phone that told her insistently that she had voice mail.

  Anyone she cared about talking to had her cell phone number. That meant the message was a hang-up from a telemarketer or a political action committee, or a representative from her college or a charity asking for money that she didn’t have.

  She closed her eyes against the insistent little red light and gave a weary yawn. She was hungry, having avoided chowing down countless pastries and muffins at Sweetheart’s, but she was too tired and too demoralized to get up and make herself something to eat.

  She wanted to fall asleep and wake up again with feet that didn’t throb. But her T-shirt had absorbed the aromas of the bakery, and so every breath she took reminded her of how hungry she was.

  A nice big greasy pepperoni pizza would do the trick. She had a twenty-dollar bill in her sock drawer…but then she’d have to sit up and find the number of the pizza place. She’d have to expend energy she didn’t have by dialing the phone and actually speaking to someone, and she’d been smiling at and speaking to strangers all day, making change and filling little paper bags with muffins and Danishes and doughnuts.

  Maybe if she prayed for a pizza it would show up, like her mom’s gift roofers. Okay, that was a bit sacrilegious, so she apologized to God.

  No sooner had she done so than a knock sounded on her door.

  Nikki sat up, rubbing her eyes. Maybe God had sent a pizza. No, she was kidding herself.

  The knock sounded again. Nikki heaved her legs over the side of the bed and stood, then ambled to the door in her bare feet. She peered out the keyhole to see Adam and another guy standing there.

  22

  NIKKI GROANED AT THE SIGHT of the two jerks.

  No. She was not opening the door. Absolutely not.

  She smelled like a giant cookie, she had no makeup on, and she hated both of them. Therefore, she was not home.

  “Nikki?” Adam called. “I know you’re in there. Your car is in the lot.”

  So? She could be at a neighbor’s. She could be in the shower. She could be walking her invisible dog.

  Nikki said nothing.

  Then the other guy, who must be the idiot Dev, put his eye to the peephole to try to see in. My kingdom for a sharp stick. Really, did she have a pencil handy? She could jab it right into his eye through the hole.

  “Nikki?” Adam called again. “Please. Just give us a moment of your time. We want to apologize.”

  And a fat lot of good that would do. Would it get her job back? Would it erase the public humiliation of having the dean and Margaret see her practically naked? She thought not.

  Nikki turned her back on the door and walked to her bedroom again. She crawled under the covers and began thinking about food. Burgers with bacon and cheese. Crispy egg rolls and pork fried rice. A giant deep-dish
pizza with extra pepperoni. Her stomach gave a last, anguished growl before she drifted into dreamland, where she sat at a red-gingham-covered table and ate them all.

  She woke disoriented a couple of hours later, unsure of what had brought her to consciousness. Then she realized what it was—another knock on the door. Why was her apartment Grand Central Station today? Annoyed, she rolled out of bed and stumbled to the peephole for the second time.

  A fast-food delivery man stood outside. With a pizza! Nikki’s stomach practically yodeled in gastric delight. God had sent her a pizza, despite her doubt and disrespect a couple of hours ago.

  She’d unlocked the door and opened it before she thought about how weird and coincidental this was. And so when the delivery man turned and she saw that it was the Dev guy under the red-and-blue cap, it was too late. He stuck his foot inside in case she tried to slam the door on him, then kissed her cheek and said, “Hey, babe!” before she could even hiss.

  Adam appeared behind him with, of all things, a portable CD player. “Nikki,” he said, “meet Dev. Dev, Nikki.”

  Looking faintly apologetic, he pressed Play, and pulsing, throbbing stripper music boomed out.

  Dev’s hips began to gyrate before Nikki could close her gaping mouth and scream, “No!”

  He flashed her a diabolical, dazzling grin and cakewalked into the apartment, doing his best Michael Jackson impersonation while she backed away from him.

  Pizza box balanced on his upturned palm, Dev then whirled and gave her the back view, shaking his butt and grooving with his pelvis. He smoothed his free hand over one bun in a laughably perverted way, trailing it down his thigh before spinning again to face her.

  Two things prevented her from diving for the phone and calling 911. First, she couldn’t help laughing at the idiot. And second, the pizza was real. The scents of pepperoni, cheese, onion and garlic wafted out of the box, infinitely more seductive than doofus Dev and his pathetic crotch-grabbing antics.

  Damn it, she was mad at them. She didn’t want to laugh! It made her even madder, which made her laugh harder, which made it very difficult to stay angry. And the two guys knew it, which gave her the urge to slam both of their heads together.