Finally the baby was safely tucked into his travel crib and Andy was nudging his wife toward the door.
“Are you sure you have the diaper bag?” Gwynn asked for the tenth time.
“Both of them,” Mark said.
Gwynn cast her eyes around the foyer. “I don’t see them.”
Maeve gave her granddaughter a big hug. “One’s upstairs and the other is downstairs.”
“What about the milk I expressed?”
“Properly stored,” Kate said.
“His binky!” Gwynn clutched her husband’s sleeve. “We forgot his binky!”
Mark held up the little rubber object. “Binky,” he said and was rewarded with a wave of laughter.
“I wish I had that on tape,” Kate said. “They’d love to hear that down at St. Michael’s, wouldn’t they?”
Life had taken him down a few interesting professional roads in the last year. Not only was he doing his chaplain work with the elderly once again and keeping up with the program with his old crowd in New Hope, he had begun counseling men and women with substance abuse problems at St. Michael’s Hospital near Basking Ridge. It was a full life and a happy one.
“Maybe you’d better not bathe him tonight,” Gwynn said. “It’s a little chilly and—”
“Gwynnie,” Kate interrupted, “I think I know what to do.”
“And if she doesn’t, I do,” Maeve said. “Between us we have a lot of experience.”
“Don’t look at me,” Mark said, laughing. “I’m still in training.”
Poor Gwynn. His heart went out to her. She looked so young, so excited, so nervous, so much in love with the life she was living. “I know I’m being silly,” she said, “but it’s just this is the first time and—”
“It’s a long trip,” Andy said, holding the front door open. “We’d better hit the road.”
Gwynn was clearly torn between motherhood and the prospect of an unbroken night’s sleep complete with room service. “Do you have the number?”
“Of course we do,” Kate said.
“On speed dial,” Mark added.
“I’m keeping my cell on all night,” Gwynn said. “If you need me for anything, I don’t care what time it is, call me!”
Maeve walked them out to the car while Kate and Mark watched from the front porch.
“I’m off,” Maeve said after she helped them unpack all of the baby paraphernalia. “I have a lecture tonight at the Bernardsville Library.”
“Alone at last,” Kate said as her mother’s car disappeared down Indigo. “I thought they’d never leave.”
Mark pulled his wife close and buried his nose in her fragrant hair. “I was thinking maybe we could—”
Daniel Mark Dempsey was tiny, but he had a powerful set of lungs. His cry made them jump apart like guilty teenagers.
“Better get used to it,” Kate said with a smile. “Only four and a half more months until we’re the ones looking for a babysitter.”
“Happy?” he asked her.
She met his eyes. “Happier than I ever thought possible.”
Mark placed his hand on his wife’s rounded belly and felt the faint stirring of life deep inside her. Nothing he had learned in seminary had come close to explaining the basic wonder that was life. That was the one thing he had to learn for himself in his own time. Who would have guessed he would find his own glimpse of heaven in a carriage house on a country lane in central New Jersey?
“Uh-oh,” Kate said as Daniel Mark Dempsey tested his lungs once more. “I think he’s hungry.”
Mark took his wife’s hand and together they went inside to see what their grandson wanted.
Turn the page for a preview of Barbara Bretton’s next novel,
Its’ In His Kiss
Coming soon!
Goldy’s Bakery—Lakeside, New Jersey
Hayley Maitland Goldstein was battling a sheet of rolled fondant when Trish, one of the counter girls, burst into the kitchen.
“There’s a guy outside and he’s unbelievably hot.” Trish was seventeen, the age when any biped with a Y chromosome rated a breathless announcement.
“That’s great, Trish.” She centered herself and draped the sugary sweetness over the bottom layer of carrot cake. Rolled fondant was like edible vinyl flooring. It required a sure touch and seamless application or else you might as well have your cakes decorated at Home Depot.
“Mrs. G.?” Trish handed her a pair of sharp kitchen shears. “About that guy—”
Hayley clipped the excess around the perimeter of the cake, then stepped back to survey her handiwork. Good thing it was the anchor layer and she would have five more chances to get it right. “Go back up front, Trish. You know Rachel doesn’t like being alone at the counter.”
“I know, but about that guy.” Trish was practically hopping in place with excitement. “He wants to see you.”
“And I want to see Russell Crowe.” Hayley smoothed a tiny ripple with the flat edge of a knife. This was her punishment for delaying the job until the last minute. What she really needed to do was start all over again, but there just wasn’t time. “We don’t always get what we want.”
Trish lowered her voice. “He looks like one of those rock stars from, you know, way back in the eighties.”
Ouch. She had been Trish’s age in the eighties.
“A rock star?” she asked, lifting a brow.
“A rock star,” Trish confirmed. “And he’s wearing leather.”
There was only one reason an aging leather-clad hottie would show up at Goldy’s Bakery at four o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon, and it had nothing to do with brownies, cheesecake, or bagels.
“Tell him to get lost,” she said. “I’m not bailing Michael out of another one of his messes.”
“But he didn’t ask for Mr. Goldstein. He asked for you.”
Of course he did. She was the one with a bank balance. Leather Boy was probably one of the half-dozen bookies her ex-husband was currently ducking up and down the Jersey Shore. She wished she had a dollar for every angry enabler who had shown up at Goldy’s in search of the reluctant Mr. Goldstein. She’d be able to buy him out once and for all and still have money to spare.
“Trish, I have a six-layer cake to finish for the Cumberland County Association of Female Realtors gala tonight. Tell him I’m not here.”
“But, Mrs. G., I already told him you were.”
“Then you’d better go out there and tell him you were wrong. If it’s that important he can leave a message.”
Trish rearranged her pretty features into an even prettier frown. “He really wants to see you, Mrs. G. Maybe—”
Hayley had no choice. She whipped out The Look, the same look every mother on the planet had down cold, and aimed it in Trish’s direction.
“I’ll tell him,” Trish said, then pushed through the swinging door to deliver the bad news.
The Look had stopped working on her daughter Lizzie, so it was nice to know she still had enough maternal fire power at her command to keep her young staff in line.
She couldn’t make out Trish’s words through the closed doors, just the high, apologetic string of sounds that was followed by a male rumble. Leather Boy, no doubt. He had a good voice, baritone, a little smoky. She couldn’t make out his words either, but Trish’s answering giggle conjured up some painful memories of herself at that age.
First a girl giggled, then she sighed, and the next thing you knew she was in Vegas taking her wedding vows in front of a red-haired Elvis with an overbite. You knew you had made a bad choice when Elvis slipped you his divorce lawyer’s business card while you were still shaking the rice from your underage hair.
She paused, a fresh sheet of fondant rippling in the breeze, and listened closer. Trish said something girly. Leather Boy rumbled something manly. This time Rachel, the other counter girl, giggled too, a sound that sent Hayley’s maternal early-warning system into DEFCON 3 mode.
Rachel was a serious straight-A student boun
d for Princeton next year on full scholarship. Rachel Gomez had probably never giggled before in her life.
If Rachel giggled, then even Lizzie might not be immune. She thanked the patron saint of single mothers for making sure her daughter was safely tucked away upstairs, working on her physics homework while her iPod pumped hip-hop directly into her bloodstream.
Lizzie was a good girl, a throwback to her maternal grandmother, who preferred the life of the mind over the pleasures of the flesh. But she knew even good girls had their limits.
Once upon a time Hayley had believed that the love of a good woman (her) could turn a bad boy (her ex) into a knight in shining armor (pure fantasy). Ten years of marriage to Michael Goldstein had finally drummed the truth into her head. People didn’t change with time. They just became more of who they were to begin with.
In the real world bad boys didn’t turn into knights in shining armor. Bad boys grew up to be even worse men, and the world would be a much happier place if little girls were taught that basic fact along with their ABCs.
Why didn’t women teach their young how to cope with the things that were really important instead of how to walk in your first pair of heels? Why didn’t they make a point of sitting their girl children down and telling them the truth about men instead of letting some guy in a leather jacket seduce them over a tray of black-and-white cookies?
Those idiotic girls out there were like ripe fruit on a very low-hanging branch. The slightest breeze would be enough to shake them from the tree and into the waiting arms of Leather Boy or someone just like him.
Well, it wasn’t going to happen on her watch. The Cumberland County Association of Female Realtors would have to get in line.
She laid the sheet of fondant down on a clean tea towel, then elbowed through the swinging doors.
Leather Boy was draped across the counter, all lean muscle and attitude. He might as well have had a skull and crossbones painted on the back of his jacket. He was too old, too jaded, too sure of himself, and if he so much as crooked one of those bony nicotine-stained 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 the same thing, and it would be nice if somebody finally benefited from her mistake.
“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.”
“Who’s Michael?” He looked a whole lot less dangerous when he was puzzled. Maybe she’d shooed the girls away too soon.
“You’re not looking for my ex?”
“I’m not looking for anybody.” He gestured toward the street, where an enormous black SUV had pride of place in front of the shop. “I’m Anton and I came along for the ride.”
And here she had done some of her best work for nothing. They stared at each other for a full second or two. He really did look like an eighties rock star. Once upon a time he would have been her dream man, but fortunately that time had come and gone.
“Anton, unless you’re looking to buy a lemon meringue pie or—”
Anton raised his hand to stop her. He wore a heavy silver ring on his middle finger and a wide leather strap around his wrist. A rocker’s version of Armani. “Wait,” he said. “Let me get the boss.”
The boss? She didn’t like the sound of that. Her ex didn’t exactly run with the Mensa crowd. Visions of an Anthony Soprano wannabe with a chip on his shoulder 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. Anton looked like an undernourished boy next to him.
Her younger self might have had a weakness for bad boys in leather jackets but her current self leaned more toward grown men in suits. A woman could trust a man who wore a suit. Men in suits knew how to keep a job. Men in suits paid their bills on time and owned houses and cars they could actually afford.
Of course some men in suits were Mob bosses or CEOs with a yen for embezzlement, so maybe her theory needed a little fine-tuning.
She busied herself wiping imaginary fingerprints from the glass countertop as he said something to Anton, straightened his tie, then strode across the sidewalk to the front door.
“You were looking for me,” Hayley said when the door closed behind him. She had never been good at playing games.
“You’re Hayley Maitland.”
“Hayley Maitland Goldstein,” she corrected him.
“I thought you were divorced.”
“Excuse me?”
“One of your counter girls said 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’s any of your business.
“She also said you weren’t here.”
“Is there a point to any of this? Because if there isn’t, I have a lot of work to do.”
He should have been offended but strangely he didn’t seem to be. He wasn’t the usual caliber of bill collector sent to find her ex.
“Are you this rude to all of your paying customers?”
“I thought you were here to—” No need to play the terrible-ex-husband card until she had 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.
“First, tell me what you’re buying and I’ll decide if it’s worth my while to spill family secrets.”
“Fair enough. I need a cake in the shape of a set of drums.”
“I can do that.” In my sleep with my spatula tied behind my back.
He grinned. “And the bass drum has to feed two hundred.”
“We did a wedding reception for five hundred last spring. The cake was in the shape of a pair of swans. I can show you photos if you like.”
“I’ve already seen them.”
“But Trish didn’t—”
“I do my homework, Mrs. Goldstein. In the last year you handled the Citibank reception at McCarter in Princeton, two very successful election night parties in Harris-burg and Trenton, and some private functions for some very well-known families.”
“You really did do your homework. Tell me your name so I can do my homework too.”
“Finn Rafferty.” He handed her a business card with his name and numbers on it.
She looked up at him. “You’re a lawyer?”
“I represent Tommy Stiles. You might have heard of him.”
Heard of him? That was like saying you were vaguely familiar with Elvis or the Beatles. “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 eyes twinkled with amusement. “Yeah,” he said. “He’s a singer. He’ll be performing at Convention Hall in Atlantic City next month 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 seemed to have rendered her temporarily speechless.
Rafferty picked up the slack.
“We’ll supply yo
u with hotel rooms for yourself and your staff. I’ll make arrangements for you to have full access to the kitchen’s facilities. Whatever you need to get the job done, it’s yours.”
She didn’t have the heart to tell him she usually baked the cakes right here at Goldy’s then schlepped them to the venue in the back of her van, praying the whole way that they’d arrive in one piece.
“So what do you say? We know your going rate and we’re willing to sweeten the deal.”
Tommy Stiles of Tom and the Afterlife? Was this really happening?
“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.”
She tried to think of a reason why that wasn’t a good idea but her mind was a total blank. All she could think of was what this job would do for her bank account. This could be the difference between just getting by and getting ahead. With a reference from someone like Tommy Stiles, she would be catapulted into a whole different level of success.
When a superstar like Tommy Stiles did something, he did it with full press coverage. There would be photographers from People and InStyle and film crews from Entertainment Tonight and E! They always did a full spread on the catering at important parties. She had thumbed through countless celebrity magazines, soaking up the details on who served what and how. Sometimes the caterer’s phone number and website were published, which was the equivalent of finding the Holy Grail in your hall closet.
All she had to do was create a spectacular, mind-blowing confection for two hundred people who had seen it all at least ten times over, and pray that her Cinderella moment was finally here.
Hayley Maitland Goldstein might be a baker, but she had the soul of a first-class litigator. Hammering out the contract took longer than Finn had expected, and that was after he had agreed to all of her demands.
It was dark when he finally left the bakery. He felt like he had gone ten rounds with a Supreme Court justice.
Anton caught sight of him as he approached the Hummer, and the engine sprang to life.
Just Like Heaven Page 26