by Joss Wood
‘Do I know you?’ Will asked, puzzled.
This was one of the things he most liked about Cape Town—the fact that people hardly recognised him. While he wasn’t famous enough to attract paparazzi attention in the UK, his face was recognisable enough to attract some attention.
‘I have one of those faces,’ he lied.
Ellie sent him a grin. ‘I’m just going to run through some ideas with Will and Paula, then I’ll show you around.’
She placed her notebook on the table and switched into work mode, outwardly confident. Jack listened as the couple explained why they now wanted a Pari’s cake—their cake designer had let them down at the last moment—and watched, amazed, as Ellie took their rather vague ideas and transformed them into a quickly sketched but brilliantly drawn concept cake. He sampled various types of cake along with the couple, and when they asked for his opinion confirmed that he liked the Death by Chocolate best. Though the carrot ran a close second. Or maybe the fudge...
If he hung around the bakery more often Jack decided he’d have to add another couple of miles to his daily run to combat the calories and the cholesterol.
Ellie watched her clients go as she gathered her papers and shoved a pencil into the messy knot of hair behind her head.
‘Today is Monday. Their wedding is on Saturday. I’m going to have to do some serious juggling to get it done for them.’ Ellie rubbed her hand over her eyes.
‘So why are you doing it, then?’ Jack asked, curious.
‘They are a sweet couple, and a wedding cake is important,’ Ellie replied.
‘Sweet? No. But they sure are slick.’
Ellie looked puzzled. ‘What do you mean?’
She might be confident about her work but she was seriously naïve when it came to reading people, instinctively choosing to believe that people put their best foot forward.
Jack leaned his forearms on the table and shook his head. ‘El, they were playing you.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘They decided to come to you for their wedding cake—but it wasn’t because their cake designer let them down. They knew there was no chance you’d make their cake at such late notice if they didn’t have a rock-solid reason and they appealed to the romantic in you.’
‘But why would you think that? I thought they were perfectly nice and above-board.’
‘She doesn’t blink—at all—when she lies, and his eyes slide to the right. Trust me, they were playing you.’
‘Huh...’ Ellie wrinkled her nose. ‘Are you sure?’
Of course he was. He’d interviewed ten-year-olds with a better ability to lie. ‘So, what are you going to do?’
Ellie stood up and shrugged. ‘Make them their cake, of course. Let’s go.’
Of course she was. Jack sighed as he followed her to the back of the bakery. She was going to produce a stunning, complicated cake in five days and their guests would be impressed, not knowing how she’d juggled her schedule to fit it in.
‘I’m beginning to suspect you’re a glutton for punishment,’ Jack told Ellie as she pushed through the stable door leading to the back of the bakery. And a sucker too. But he kept that thought to himself.
She threw a look at him above her shoulder. ‘Maybe—but did you notice that they didn’t ask for a price?’
He hadn’t, actually.
‘And that order form they signed—at the bottom it states that there is a twenty-five per cent surcharge for rush jobs. Pure profit, Jack.’
Well, maybe not so much of a sucker.
Ellie walked over to a stainless steel table and tossed her sketchpad onto it. She scowled at the design they’d decided on. ‘There’s a standard surcharge for rush jobs,’ she admitted. ‘But I really don’t need the extra profit.’
‘And now you’re angry because they played you?’ Jack commented.
‘I was totally sucked in by Paula’s big blue eyes, the panic I saw on her face. Will played his part perfectly as well, trying to reassure her while looking at me with those help me eyes!’
‘They were good. Not great, but good.’
‘Arrgh! I need the added pressure of making a wedding cake in five days like I need a hole in my head!’
‘So call them up and tell them you can’t do it,’ Jack suggested.
That would mean going back on her word, and she couldn’t do that. ‘I can’t. And, really, couldn’t you have given me a heads-up before I agreed to make their damn cake?’
Jack cocked his head. ‘How?’
‘I don’t know! You’re the one who is supposed to be so street-wise and dialed-in... Couldn’t you have whispered in my ear? Kicked my foot? Written me a damn note?’
Jack’s lips quirked. ‘My handwriting is shocking.’
‘It is not. I’ve seen your writing!’ Ellie shoved her hands into her hair. Her shoulders slumped. ‘Useless man.’
‘So I’ve been told.’ He reached out and laid a hand on her shoulder, his expression suddenly serious. ‘Sorry. It never occurred to me to interfere.’
She looked at him, leaning back against the wall, seemingly relaxed. But his eyes never stopped moving... He hadn’t said anything to her because he was an observer. He didn’t get involved in a situation; he just commentated on it after the fact. She couldn’t blame him. It was what he did. What journalists did.
She would have appreciated a heads-up, though. Dammit.
Ellie heard a high-pitched whistle and snapped her head up, immediately looking at the back section of the bakery, where the production area flowed into another room. Elias, one of her head bakers, stood at the wide entrance and jerked his head. Something in his body language had Ellie moving forward, and she reached her elderly staff member at the same time Jack did.
‘What’s wrong, Elias?’ Ellie asked when she reached him.
Ellie felt Jack’s hand on her lower back and was glad it was there.
Elias spoke in broken English and Ellie listened carefully. Before she had time to take in his words, never mind the implications, Jack was also demanding to know what the problem was.
‘One of the industrial mixers is only working at one speed and the other one has stopped altogether,’ she explained.
‘That’s not good,’ Jack said.
‘It’s a disaster! We have orders coming out of our ears and we need cake. Dammit! Nothing happens in the bakery without the mixers... Elias, how did this happen?’
Elias shifted on his feet and stared at a point behind her head. ‘I did tell you, Miss Ellie...the mixers...they need service. Did tell you...bad noise.’
Ellie scrubbed her face with her hands. He was right. He had told her—numerous times—but she’d been so busy, feeling so overwhelmed, and the mixers had been working. It had been on her list of things to do but it had kept getting shoved to the bottom when, really, it should have been at the top.
Ellie placed her hands over her face again and shook her head. What was she going to do?
When she eventually dropped her hands she saw that Elias was walking out of earshot. Jack had obviously signalled that they needed some privacy. He placed his hands on the mixer and lifted his eyebrows at Ellie.
‘Dropped the ball on this one, didn’t you?’ he remarked.
Ellie glared at him, her blue eyes laser-bright. ‘In between juggling the orders and paying the staff and placing orders for supplies, I somehow forgot to schedule a service for the mixers! Stupid me.’ She folded her arms across her chest as she paced the small area between them.
‘It was, actually, since this is the heartbeat of your business.’
Did he think she didn’t know that? ‘I messed up. I get it... It’s something I’m doing a lot of lately.’
‘Stop feeling sorry for yourself and start thinking about how you’re going to fix the problem,’ Jack snapped.
She felt the instinctive urge to slap him...slap something.
‘You can indulge in self-pity later, but right now your entire production has sto
pped and you’re wasting daylight.’
His words shocked some sense into her, but she reserved the right to indulge in some hysterics later. ‘I need to get someone here to fix these mixers...’ Ellie saw him shake his head and she threw up her hands. ‘What have I said wrong now?’
‘Priorities, Ellie. What are you going to do about your orders?’
‘You mean the mixers,’ Ellie corrected him.
Jack shook his head and reached for the paper slips that were stuck on a wooden beam to the right of the mixers. ‘No, I mean the orders. Prioritise the orders and get...what was his name...Elias...to start hand-mixing the batter for the cakes that are most urgent.’
That made sense, Ellie thought, reluctantly impressed.
Ellie took the slips he held out and a pen and quickly prioritised the orders. ‘Okay, that’s done. I’ll get him working on these.’
Jack nodded and looked at the mixers. ‘Are these under guarantee or anything?’
‘No. Why?’
‘Got a toolbox?’
‘A toolbox? Why? What for?’
‘While Elias starts the hand-mixing I’ll take a look at these mixers. I know my way around machines and motors. It’s probably just a broken drive belt or a stripped gear.’
‘Where on earth would you have learnt about machines and motors?’ Ellie demanded, bemused.
‘Ellie, I spend a good portion of my life in Third World countries, on Third World roads, using Third World transportation. I’ve broken down more times in more crappy cars than you’ve made wedding cakes. Since I’m not the type to hang about waiting for someone else to get things working, I get stuck in. I can now, thanks to the tutelage of some amazing bush mechanics, fix most things.’
Ellie shut her flapping mouth and swallowed. ‘Okay, well...uh...there’s a basic toolbox in the storeroom and a hardware store down the road if you need anything else.’
Jack put his hands on his hips. ‘And get on that phone and get someone here to service those mixers. I might be able to get them running but they’ll still need a service.’
Ellie looked at him, baffled at this take-charge Jack. ‘Jack—thank you.’
‘Get one of the staff to bring me that toolbox, will you?’ Jack crouched on his haunches at the back of one of the machines and started to work off the cover that covered the mixer’s motor. ‘Hell, look at this motor! It’s leaking oil...it’s clogged up...when was this damn thing last serviced?’
Ellie, who thought that Jack wouldn’t appreciate hearing that she hadn’t the faintest clue, decided to scarper while she could and left Jack cursing to himself.
FOUR
Elias laughed when Jack messed up the traditional African handshake—again—and slapped him on the shoulder. ‘We’ll teach you yet, mlungu.’
‘Ma-lun-goo?’ Jack tested the word out on his tongue.
‘“White man” in Xhosa,’ said the old Xhosa baker.
‘Ah.’ Jack stared at Elias and a slow grin crossed his face. ‘I heard you talking Xhosa earlier. I love the clicking sound you make. If I were staying I would want to learn Xhosa.’
‘If you stay...’ Elias grinned ‘...I teach you.’
‘There’s a deal,’ Jack said, before bidding him goodnight and turning back to the rear entrance of the bakery.
Ellie looked up as he walked towards her and ran the back of her hand over her forehead. ‘Bet you’re regretting ambling down the hill this morning,’ she said with a grateful smile.
‘It’s been an...interesting day,’ Jack said, conscious of a dull headache behind his eyes. ‘A baptism by grease, flour, sugar and baking powder...’
‘I never expected you to help with either the fixing or the mixing, but thank you.’
He’d resurrected one of the mixers, and when a part arrived for the other mixer in the morning he’d have that up and running within an hour. While he’d been working on the mixers he’d watched Elias and his assistant falling further and further behind on the orders, and had instantly become their best friend when he’d got the one mixer working.
‘Elias really battled physically to do that hand-mixing.’
Ellie cocked her head. ‘So that’s why you stepped in to help him?’
He shrugged. ‘I thought he was going to have a heart attack,’ Jack admitted.
He’d mixed the batter for more than a hundred and twenty cupcakes and, under Elias’s beady eye, also mixed the ingredients for two Pari’s Paradise Chocolate cakes and more than a few vanilla sponge cakes. His shoulders ached and his biceps were crying out for mercy...
‘He’s stronger than he looks. He should’ve retired years ago, but he doesn’t want to and I can’t make him.’ Ellie sighed. ‘He’s worked here since the day the bakery opened. It’s his second home, and as long as he wants to work I’ll let him. But maybe I should try to sneak in another assistant.’
‘Sneak in?’
‘It took me six months to get him to accept Gideon in his space.’ Ellie grinned. ‘He’s a wonderful old gent but he has the pride of Lucifer. I’m surprised he let you do anything.’
‘Yeah, but I did get his beloved mixer working.’
‘That you did,’ Ellie agreed. ‘And I’m so grateful. You worked like a dog today.’
Which raised the question...why had he bust his gut to help this woman he barely knew? He was an observer, not a participator, and her bakery wouldn’t have gone into bankruptcy if they’d waited for a mechanic to fix the mixers. But he’d felt compelled to step up and get stuck in, to help her, to...
Aargh! He must have taken a blow to the head along with the stabbing and the beating, because this wasn’t how he normally rolled.
Jack, frustrated at not recognising himself, thought that he’d kill for a beer or two. He stood next to Ellie’s table and leaned his shoulder against a wall, watching her work. She’d been in the bakery for nearly twelve hours and she was still working on another cake. The nightshift of two more bakers were starting their shift and Ellie would probably be there to see them off in the morning.
She might tend to panic when she hit a snag but he admired her work ethic.
And her legs... Who would’ve thought that a chef’s jacket over shorts and long tanned legs could look so sexy? Jack swallowed, uneasy at the realisation that he wanted...no, craved her.
He’d never had this reaction to any woman before. Generally it was easy come, easy go. Nothing about Ellie so far had been easy, and he suspected that nothing would be. Jack shifted on his feet as desire flared. It would be easy to seduce her, but that would make leaving in a couple of days that much more complicated. Because somehow he instinctively knew that he couldn’t treat her as a casual encounter. There was something about Ellie that tugged at him—some button that she pushed that made him suspect that this was a woman worth getting to know...
And that was more terrifying than being caught in the crossfire in any hot zone anywhere in the world. They had yet to make flak jackets to protect against emotional bullets.
Ellie looked up from the bare cake in front of her, which had been cut into the vague shape of a train and was covered in rough white icing. She sent him a tired smile. ‘I’m wondering what I can give you for supper.’
Jack pried himself off the wall and walked away from the table she was working at. ‘Something simple...let’s order pizza.’
Ellie sighed and Jack saw relief flicker on her face.
‘Okay. I just need to finish this and we can go home. Or you can go home and I’ll follow in a bit.’
Jack hooked a stool with his foot and rolled it towards him, sinking down onto it with a groan. ‘I’ll wait for you.’
Ellie pulled out a ball of fire-engine-red dough from a container and started to knead it with competent hands.
Jack stretched out his legs. ‘What are you making with that red dough?’
‘It’s not dough. It’s fondant icing. It’s for a train cake,’ Ellie explained. She gestured to what looked like a big pasta roller on the
table next to hers. ‘It goes in there to flatten it out, then I’ll drape it over the cake.’
‘Does it have to be done tonight?’
‘It should be. Luckily, I can make this in my sleep.’ Ellie slapped her hand into the fondant and caught his look. ‘What? Why are you looking at me like that?’
‘I was just thinking about your business, what you do here.’ He hadn’t been, but he suspected that she wasn’t ready to hear what he’d really been thinking...which involved her being naked and sliding all over him.
Oh, Lordy-be, there was that smile that made her womb vibrate. It was a combination of schoolboy naughtiness and sex-on-a-stick, and Ellie thought that stronger women than her would have trouble resisting it. She opened her mouth to ask what he was smiling about and practically bit her tongue in half to keep the words from escaping.
The hell of it was that while she’d initially thought that Jack might be all flash, today he had proved that he was more than just a hot body with a reasonably sharp brain. How many men of her acquaintance would have jumped in to help, tinkering with a motor and getting splattered with grease and then patiently mixing endless batches of batter—a thankless, back-breaking, horrible job to do by hand—without a word of complaint?
Ellie smoothed icing over the front of the train. The ability to give without asking for something in return, to jump into a situation and offer help when it was most needed, was a rare quality and unfortunately deeply attractive. Even more so than his hot body and masculine face.
Ellie’s hand stilled on the cake as a panicked thought jumped into her head. She wanted him to go—now—tonight. She wanted him to go before she started imagining him in her bakery, in her life...before she started dreaming of a clear mind to keep her focused, a steady hand to prod her along, a hard body to touch and taste, then to curl up against at night.
Ellie fisted her hand and had to stop herself from punching the cake. She was suddenly ridiculously, outrageously angry at herself. Why was she even letting thoughts like those into her head? Considering what-ifs and maybes? Yes, he was a good-looking guy who gave her a buzz, a man nice enough to help her out, but there was no call to start thinking that he was anything more than a transient visitor. He was nothing but her father’s friend, a brief acquaintance, and realistically she wasn’t his type.