Spiced

by Jamie Farrell

  Possibly because most of his customers were out-of-towners.

  Brides and grooms and their families shopping for wedding supplies. Guests in for destination weddings. The occasional weirdos who swung through town just to take pictures of the massive wedding cake monument at one end of the main drag, which locals called The Aisle instead of Main Street because it fit the theme.

  But out-of-towners didn’t make for good repeat visitors.

  Today, he was balancing double duty as busboy and extra server in the dining room. Red-and-green stained-glass lampshades hung over every booth. Family photos and customer artwork covered the wood-paneled walls, though there wasn’t yet as much artwork as he would’ve liked. Red-checkered curtains hung on every window. Butcher paper served as tablecloths, encouraging kids and adults alike to color while they waited. The kitchen was behind an exposed brick wall that added as much flavor to the décor as Tony’s secret spice blend did to the pizza sauce.

  On his fourth trip out to deliver a pizza, he spotted a familiar face waiting for a waitress at one of the back booths.

  A familiar local face.

  “Lindsey.” He put on his best everything’s great smile, because she’d not only been one of his most loyal customers back in Willow Glen, she’d also gotten him out of giving Tabitha a single red cent in the divorce. Which meant she also knew every gruesome detail of his divorce, which still left his teeth on edge.

  He nodded to her and the dark-haired couple in the red vinyl booth across from her. “How’s the pizza?”

  “As if you have to ask.” She smiled back, one hand resting on her pregnant belly, and his gut bottomed out. It had been over a year since she worked his case, but she’d sent him a note a few months back that this building was coming on the market if he was still interested in expanding outside Willow Glen—translation, getting the hell out of Willow Glen—and he’d been able to purchase it quickly and quietly. The lady had a do-gooder streak in her. “But I do have a complaint about the menu. I didn’t see any avocado.”

  “Pizza’s fancy, salad isn’t.”

  “I meant on the pizza.”

  “She’s disgusting,” the guy across from her piped up, prompting his companion to shush him. He grinned at her.

  “Like a chicken bacon ranch with avocado?” Hell if Tony would turn down an opportunity to make a local customer happy. Especially this one. Not only was she a popular native daughter, she was married to an international country rock sensation. One word from him could have this place flooded.

  Lindsey shook her head. “Like pepperoni and pineapple and avocado.”

  “Okay, yes, she’s disgusting,” the dark-haired woman conceded.

  “Tony, have you met Max and Merry? Max is moving into the building next door, so you’ll be neighbors.”

  “The garage?” he asked.

  Max nudged Merry’s shoulder. “Merry’s garage. I’m the hired help. Fixing up old cars.”

  “You are so much more than the hired help.” Merry fluttered a hand against his bicep, her sappy smile making Tony’s gut roil a little more.

  This was the downside to life in Bliss. Not that he was opposed to love—he just wished his heart could hibernate like his dick had most of the last year. “You do oil changes?” Tony asked.

  “For pizza? Hell yeah.”

  For pizza and for putting the word out among more locals. “Great.” He looked back at Lindsey. “Let me know when you’re coming back. I’ll get an avocado just for you.”

  She gave him a quick once-over with her light brown eyes, as though she were looking for evidence of how he was holding up and how business was doing. “Have you joined the Bridal Retailers Association yet? They have a preferred list of local restaurants that goes out in bridal welcome packets.”

  And there went Pepper Blue invading his thoughts. “Been a little busy.”

  She didn’t call him on the lie, but her face relaxed into blank-lawyer mode even though he knew she’d been out of the lawyer business for almost as long as he’d been divorced. As if she knew he’d been asked and had turned it down. Which she probably did, given the size of this town and the people she was related to.

  “You should get on that,” she said lightly.

  “Good chance right now.” Max pointed to something behind Tony. “Pepper’s the one you need to talk to.”

  “Is that her grandmother?” Merry whispered.

  Lindsey looked too. “Yes, that’s Goosing Granny.”

  “What’s the guy got on his hands?”

  Tony blew out a slow breath and turned to look. Yep, there was Pepper, sitting at the table right beneath the picture of him as a four-year-old, on a leash, dressed as She-Ra while his sisters walked him. He hadn’t noticed her, but then, he hadn’t been looking. Her dark hair was swept back in a fancy ponytail, emeralds dangling from her earlobes, a brightly patterned green scarf draped over a fitted black shirt. Her outrageous grandmother, in a sweatshirt proclaiming her the world’s best bungee jumper, bounced and clapped beside her—though her white curls, he noticed, didn’t budge.

  Across the table were two men—one hunched, gray, and balding, his lips curling in, his belt buckled about nipple level, chin at his chest as it moved slowly up and down, the occasional snore emanating from him.

  The other was young, with a thick head of straight jet-black hair combed back, in a plaid shirt and a blue tie, a T-Rex puppet on his left hand and a stegosaurus puppet on his right. “What kind of pizza do you think we should have, Mr. Pointy Teeth?” he said in a falsetto voice.

  “Anything raw and meaty, Steggy, my boy,” he answered himself in a deep growl.

  “You should eat your vegetables, Mr. Pointy Teeth,” the stegosaurus said.

  “I’m a carnivore, and I’d rather eat this lovely humanoid,” Mr. Pointy Teeth said. He chomped toward Pepper, who blinked an imperious irritation that she’d aimed at him a time or two. “I can chomp five hundred pounds in a single bite. That means I could eat two of her.”

  “Isn’t he fun?” Granny Grabby-hands said. “Noah will love this. You have to introduce Drew to CJ and Nat.”

  “He thinks I weigh two hundred fifty pounds,” she said, and if Mr. Pointy Teeth and the oblivious dummy he was attached to didn’t recognize that I will eviscerate you first with my eyeballs, then with my tongue, and I’ll finish you up with a knife in your thigh tone, then he guessed Steggy was the smartest of the bunch.

  “Did her grandmother really move in with her just to find her a date to her sister’s wedding?” Merry whispered.

  “That’s what I hear,” Lindsey replied just as softly.

  “Someone should save her from this. Max—go save her.”

  There was a part of Tony—no small part—amused at the idea of Pepper taking Dino Man to a wedding.

  There was another part of him—a stupider part—suggesting she needed a save. And that if he saved her, she’d owe him one. And that he could do this without his lower extremities getting involved. And that he’d break Max’s friggin’ neck before he’d let him be the one to rescue Pepper Blue.

  His feet were moving before his brain could engage. He swung a chair from the next table around, straddled it, and propped an arm behind her chair. “Hey, gorgeous.”

  She swung around to face him, and her eyes widened. They were brighter than the sparkles in her ears, multifaceted with flecks the color of spring amidst the deep green, despite the what the hell are you doing? flashing through them. She blinked once, her lush ruby lips parted, and in an instant, the what the hell turned to I might not like you, but thank you.

  “Hey, yourself.” She tucked an errant, minuscule wisp of hair behind her ear. After the briefest hesitation, she reached her neck out, leaned into him, and brushed a kiss against his cheek.

  His lungs hung suspended in his chest, unable to pull in air despite the hammering of his heart. His skin was tight, his stomach a tumbling vat of lava, and a tremor started in his knees and worked its way up his thighs, whi
ch felt as though he’d just squatted the entire building a thousand times.

  “Thank you,” she whispered before she pulled back, but her hand rested on his, and now his arm was on fire. Good fire. The kind of fire that funneled to his stomach and beelined to his groin. That wasn’t a measly, bendable tent rod poking his zipper. That was a whole freaking flagpole.

  Dammit.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her grandmother’s jaw drop, and her top denture fell out.

  “Steggy,” Tony said without taking his eyes off Pepper, “you wanna grab that? Mr. Pointy Teeth’s arms aren’t long enough.”

  A moment of silence pulled his attention across the table. Up close, he realized her date was skinny, with a long face, plaid shirt, and wimpy irritation curling his lip. “Who are you?”

  Tony reached across the table and shook Mr. Pointy Teeth’s tiny hand. “Tony. Nice to meet you, Mr. Pointy Teeth.”

  Pepper snort-whimpered.

  Granny Grabby-hands recovered her denture and worked it back and forth over her gums. She wagged a gnarled finger at Pepper. “He refused to strip for us!”

  The old dude snuffled loudly and jerked his head up. “Chicken strips? I thought we were having pizza.”

  “Excuse me, but the ladies and my grandfather and I are here on a private date,” Drew said. His dinosaur puppets were chomping on the edge of the table. That’d be an interesting insurance claim. Damage occurred as a result of being gnawed on by dinosaurs with cloth teeth.

  “You told me you weren’t dating the pizza man,” Granny said.

  “We wanted to keep it quiet for a while,” Tony said.

  “While it’s new,” Pepper agreed. “Because of…you know.”

  Oh, shit. What was you know? And did it matter? This was a onetime deal.

  “You haven’t told him?” Granny shrieked.

  “Geez, Gran, I haven’t asked him to marry me yet, either. I usually save all that for at least the third date.”

  And there went Tony’s flagpole. More like a tadpole now.

  “You propose on the third date?” Mr. Pointy Teeth’s puppet master said. And the tool sounded interested.

  “Not anymore,” Pepper quipped.

  “On that note,” Tony said, “I need to get back to work.” He pushed back from the table, executed a perfect chair spin to put it back at the table behind them, and touched Pepper between her shoulder blades. The contact sent a ripple of heat up his fingers to his forearm. “Later, beautiful.”

  “Can’t wait, schmoopsy-kins.” She flashed a smile, her focus directly on his nose.

  He saluted the puppets. “Mr. Pointy Teeth, Steggy, nice to meet you. Gran, hope to see you again soon.”

  The words tasted like granite dust, but his smile felt real enough.

  Joking around with a woman and her grandma, interrupting an awkward date—this was the most normal he’d been in almost two years. Since before his mom got sick, before Tabitha and—just before.

  One of his waitresses was with Lindsey and Max and Merry, but Lindsey was giving him a funny look.

  The kind that prompted a bone-deep, whole-body shiver. He pushed it off and cocked a finger at her. “Avocadoes?”

  “Grocery store’s right down the street.”

  Satisfied customers all around.

  Life was good.

  * * *

  Pepper ushered Gran into the back of Bliss Bridal Boutique mid-afternoon Monday, still answering increasingly more difficult questions about Tony.

  Tony. Tony with the crinkly-eyed pirate smile, the hilariously quick wit, and the remarkably simple solution to her dating problem.

  If only he wasn’t Tony.

  Gran stopped in the doorway to the small office across from the kitchenette in the back of the boutique. “What’s his last name?”

  Crap. What was his last name? How did she not know her neighbor’s last name? “For a woman who wants more great-grandchildren, you’re being remarkably picky.”

  “You can learn a lot about a person from his last name.”

  “Whose last name?” Natalie, Pepper’s sister-in-law and business partner at the boutique, waddled from the desk to the filing cabinet that was almost as tall as she was, dressed in a chic purple maternity dress that made her look like a fashionable grape.

  “Pepper’s boyfriend,” Gran said. “He’s a pizza-delivery guy.”

  Nat gave Pepper a half-squint before widening her stance and squatting to open the bottom drawer. “You have a boyfriend.”

  “It’s…new.”

  “It’s good to cast a wide net to catch the best fish, but you should’ve told me,” Gran chided. “Poor Drew.”

  “Poor Drew wouldn’t have noticed if your hair had been on fire.”

  “Who’s Drew?” Nat asked. “I’m confused.”

  Gran plopped into the office chair and gave it a spin. “He was supposed to be Pepper’s date at lunch today. He’s a doctor.”

  “Of paleontology,” Pepper clarified. “Gran set me up with Ross from Friends. With puppets.”

  Nat snerked. She shifted her weight and went one drawer up. “Dinosaur puppets? Does he do birthday parties? Noah would love that.”

  “See?” Gran stuck her tongue out at Pepper. “Some people can appreciate the unique.”

  “Does Mom know you got your tongue pierced?”

  “YOLO, sweetheart,” Gran said. “Tell me more about this pizza man.”

  She would’ve loved to, but his cat is a demon and he slammed his door in my face yesterday and I have no idea why he’d pretend to like me today wasn’t the best start if she wanted Gran to quit setting her up on dates.

  Having a fake boyfriend? Brilliant.

  Tony as said fake boyfriend?

  Insanity. And that was putting it nicely.

  She turned to her sister-in-law. “Nat, you need some help?”

  She was digging through the drawers, contorting her pregnant body and grunting. “Can you carry this thing for me for a few days?” the petite brunette joked with a point at her bulging stomach.

  Pepper’s own womb ached. Soon. Soon, that would be her too. Then no more dates, no more contemplating fake boyfriends, no more panic over getting too old to have kids.

  And no more eating salad when she was dragged to a pizza joint for lunch.

  “Not a chance,” she told Nat. “I know his father too well.”

  “Apparently so do I.” Nat flashed a cheeky grin. “Kinda how we got into this mess.”

  “Lalala, not listening…” Working with her sister-in-law was a special kind of gift. More family. More fun.

  Usually.

  Nat’s pregnancy had been a convenient excuse for Pepper’s own hormonal mood swings the last few months. Too much time around pregnant women makes me crazy, she’d told Cinna after they’d had a verbal bitch-slap session a month or so ago. It’s like when women’s cycles sync. I’m having sympathetic pregnancy hormones.

  Or you’re just mean, Cinna had said. They’d made up a few hours later, Cinna had had her own monthly hormonal outburst four days after that, and life went on.

  Nat straightened and blew out a breath that pushed her short, dark hair out of her eyes. “Heard you moved in with Pepper and Cinna,” she said to Gran. Nat was a Blue by marriage, but she had an evil streak of her own. “Sounds like you’re having fun.”

  “I’m trying to, but someone’s a real stick in the mud. She won’t let me paint my room fuchsia.”

  “I don’t want the fumes damaging any of your preciously limited supply of brain cells,” Pepper said.

  Nat’s cheeky grin got bigger. “Good luck if you’re trying to teach her to lighten up and have fun,” she said to Gran.

  Pepper sighed. She could lighten up. She could have fun. She’d simply been preoccupied with personal issues she wasn’t ready to share yet.

  Also, she’d worked her ass off the last fifteen years to get here—successful business owner, upstanding member of a prosperous community, with the
house and the dog and soon the family. “You know you’re only my favorite sister-in-law by default.”

  “And I always will be.” Nat gave her a shoulder hug that was heavy on the belly and light on the squeeze.

  “Need a nursemaid?” Pepper said. “Gran’s quite spry for her age. Loves to give advice. Has an adorable dog that’ll bite your ankles if you do something so heinous as feeding it dog food instead of canned tuna. And she makes the best cornmeal mush I’ve ever tasted.”

  “That’s disgusting.”

  “It was good enough for George Washington, it’s good enough for my family,” Gran declared. “And I make the best raisin pies this side of the Mississippi.”

  Nat shuddered. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I’d rather have Cinna.”

  “That can be arranged too,” Pepper offered.

  “Stop it. You’re raising my blood pressure. Tell me more about this pizza man. You went to Pepperoni Tony’s, right? Oh, wait—is this the delivery stripper?”

  “He was never a stripper, and his name is Tony.” As in Pepperoni Tony’s, which Gran apparently hadn’t picked up on yet.

  Nat, however, probably had. “Your sisters liked him, I heard.”

  “So did I,” Gran said.

  “That’s just because he gave you a lap dance.” See? Pepper could be funny.

  Nat wheezed out a bark of laughter. “Stop, you’re going to make my water break.”

  “You have clients this afternoon?” While Pepper managed the showroom downstairs with bridal and bridesmaid gowns, Nat had her own space upstairs where she designed custom gowns and oversaw the alterations room. Brides were willing to pay a pretty penny for original gowns from Bliss, and the boutique was thriving.

  “Alterations,” Nat said. “The bride is this sweet seventy-year-old lady. Her daughters and future daughters-in-law are her bridesmaids. She has two with her today—the others didn’t need as much work.”

  “Family fun.”

  “If you love tension and drama and one bridesmaid calling the bride names when she thinks no one is listening.” Nat swiped the back of her hand over her forehead and sucked in an audible breath as though she were trying to squeeze air into a balloon while someone was sitting on it. “Have you seen a bag of fabric pencils down here? Noah used to color with them when I wasn’t looking.”