Spiced

by Jamie Farrell

  Pepper gestured to the bartender and waved toward Gran before picking up her drink and nudging him to two square tables being pushed together near the door.

  “Pepper! Hey!” Kimmie waved at them.

  Pepper steered around the tables to lean over Kimmie’s pregnant belly for a hug. “Hey. Coconut cream pie craving?”

  “Always. Pretty sure at least one of them is going to be a dreamer.” She eyed Tony. “Are we interrupting a date?”

  “Not if you join us,” Gran announced. She put her hands on Kimmie’s belly. “Maybe you could spread some of this fertility to these two. If she gets knocked up, he’ll have to marry her.”

  Tony’s gut reared up and kicked like a caged stallion.

  “If we were living in nineteen fifty,” Pepper said. “Quit giving Tony heart attacks, and quit saying things you need to apologize for.” She hooked her arm through his elbow and put on her professional smile again, but this one didn’t even approach mildly pleasant. “You’ve met Kimmie and Josh, right?”

  “Got my ass kicked by him on the basketball court once or twice.” Tony shook hands with both of them.

  “How did you two meet again?” Kimmie asked.

  “His cat terrorized my dog,” Pepper said lightly. “I forgave him when he delivered a delicious pizza.”

  Kimmie pointed to her belly. “Josh delivered me a pizza once, and now look where we are. Just be careful.”

  Kimmie laughed. Josh laughed. Gran and Cinna laughed, and Elmer joined in too.

  Tony forced a laugh. But it caught in his throat when he realized he wasn’t the only one faking it.

  Pepper’s eyes had lost their light. She blinked quickly, but not before he’d caught the sheen of moisture and the quiver in her lips. And once again, she seemed to summon her steel. “We should order.”

  Or he should grab her hand and drag her out of here.

  Forget the double date. Forget the friends.

  Something was wrong. He couldn’t fix it if he didn’t know what it was.

  “I haven’t had cheese fries in ages,” Pepper announced. She draped her coat over a chair and took a seat. “And I’d give my left hand for a bacon cheeseburger.”

  “Elmer almost gave his left hand to a tiger once,” Gran said. “Or was that your left foot?”

  Josh pulled out a seat for Kimmie, and Elmer helped Gran sit as well.

  “My left knee,” Elmer said. “Almost lost the whole leg. Can tell the weather by it. We got a doozy coming this weekend. Can tell because it aches like a bitch. Want to see the scar?”

  “Maybe after dinner,” Pepper said quickly, as easily as if nothing was wrong.

  He took the seat beside her and draped his arm over the back of her chair.

  Maybe nothing was wrong. Maybe he was making it up.

  Even if he was right, he wasn’t really her boyfriend.

  Yet.

  So he’d be here for now, and later, when the time was right, he’d feel out the waters and see if it was time to take a swim.

  14

  Friday morning, Pepper was slipping into her boots and debating the perfect reply to Tony’s text message about dinner tonight when George erupted in yips and charged down the stairs.

  A knock sounded a moment later. Sadie peeked out from beneath the bed. “Have to come out and face him sooner or later, pup,” Pepper said. “Mom’s running out of seniors’ homes to call for Gran.”

  Sadie whimpered.

  “I know, I know, but he’s trying. He’s used to being a single child. Show him you can’t be bossed around, and you’ll be fine.”

  She grabbed a pair of emerald earrings off her dresser and put them in while she made her way down the stairs. Gran and Elmer had been right—a blizzard was forecasted to descend on Bliss tonight, which had put the town into a frenzy the last couple of days and interrupted Pepper’s idea to go visit Tarra this weekend. Most appointments were canceled at Bliss Bridal today, but she still wanted to get in and check on things before they closed up.

  And probably tell Tony dinner was a bad idea, given the forecast.

  Dammit.

  She hadn’t seen him since Tuesday. Just more texts here and there while they both prepped for the storm.

  The knock sounded again as she reached the bottom.

  Tony stood on the porch in a leather bomber jacket, ice skates hanging off his shoulders. Her heart gave a hiccup.

  Was it the thicker scruff on his chin and cheeks that set off the fireworks in her belly, or was it a trick of the morning light that he seemed more virile this morning?

  George leapt for his calf like a long-lost lover. So he’d noticed how delicious Tony seemed this morning too.

  “Hey,” Pepper said.

  He snagged the little white pain in the ass and held him while he wiggled. “I called in sick. For both of us. Go get changed. We’re going skating.”

  “What? No.”

  “When’s the last time you took a day off?”

  “Nat’s on maternity leave. I told most of the bridal consultants to stay home and get ready for the storm. You should be getting ready for the storm.”

  “Your manager said you’ve left with a headache every day this week. She’s glad to see you’re taking care of yourself, and there’s only one bride—a local girl—coming in today. Had a good week, so I could afford to put my assistant manager in charge of closing things up at one at Pepperoni Tony’s. Go get your coat. Open skate starts in fifteen minutes and is closing early because of the storm. If you can’t do it for you, do it for me. I haven’t taken a full day off in a year. Maybe more.”

  She opened her mouth to argue.

  But he was right. She’d had a long week—a rough week—and she hadn’t taken a single sick day since she’d moved to Bliss.

  Nor had she ever ice skated. “Okay.”

  He drew back. “Okay?”

  “Yes, okay. As soon as I call Bliss Bridal and confirm, okay. You don’t want to go now?”

  “I do, but Cinna said—” He snapped his jaw shut and pushed into the house. Once the door was shut, he released George. “Go on. Change.”

  “Cinna told you to take me ice skating?”

  “No. She said you’re stubborn as a goat and peckish as a chicken and that I’d need to carry you up the stairs and change your clothes for you.”

  That was a happy tingle in a very pleasant place. “She might be right.”

  “I’ll be loud enough for your grandmother to hear. And you know she’ll want to come with us.”

  Right. This was all an act.

  It was also the closest thing to a real relationship she’d had in forever. “Give me five minutes. Ten if you’re lying about already calling me in sick.”

  She raced upstairs and found Gran leaning out her bedroom door and shoving her dentures in, white flowered nightgown billowed to her toes. “Tony’s taking us ice skating?”

  “Gran—”

  “Don’t you go pulling that you’re too old baloney. Besides, you two need a chaperone. There wasn’t enough kissy-kissy going on at Suckers the other night.” She teetered to the top of the stairs. “Young man, don’t even think about leaving without me,” she called.

  He stepped into view down in the living room. “Wouldn’t dream of it, Gran.” He tilted a wry smile at Pepper. Should’ve worn pants, that grin said. If you hadn’t had to change, we could’ve gotten out without her.

  Fine for him to suggest. He could’ve texted and asked her to meet him at the rink.

  Which she would’ve ignored.

  And which he apparently knew.

  “Ticktock, ladies. Gonna miss all the good ice.”

  Sadie bunny-hopped out of the bedroom. When she spotted Tony, her tongue dipped out in a happy doggy pant, and she took the stairs like a normal canine.

  “Don’t let George push her around,” Pepper called.

  “My George would do no such thing. He’s a good boy. Tony, be a sweetheart and pop a can of tuna for him if you can make
Pepper’s newfangled can opener work. Can openers shouldn’t need smartphones to work. They’re make-you-dumb phones, you ask me.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You see those manners?” Gran said to Pepper. “We gotta get you hitched to this one before some other woman sneaks in and snags him. Especially if he knows how to work a can opener. A man who can cook is a man worth marrying. That goat’s really working, isn’t it?”

  “You know what Mom would say about you going ice skating?”

  “Probably the same thing she says about me and skydiving. When did my girls get to be such fuddy-duds?”

  Probably around the time Gran broke her hip. Or maybe when she got arrested for goosing a policeman who was investigating a rash of thefts at her first senior citizens’ home. Or it might’ve been when she disappeared to Vegas for a week without telling anyone she was going, and came back claiming she’d gotten hitched to Elvis’s ghost.

  Cinna might’ve been right about that Vegas-accidental-marriage thing.

  The only way to discourage Gran from skating would’ve been to offer her something better, but shuffleboard at the seniors’ center wouldn’t have the same appeal. Plus, the seniors’ center probably wasn’t open this morning.

  And honestly? Spending a morning with Gran, on a day she didn’t need to be at work, held almost as much appeal as spending it with Tony. Because while she lived with Gran, she never got to have fun with Gran.

  Thirty minutes later, they were inside the Bliss Civic Center. Gran had convinced one of the young whippersnappers who worked at the arena to help her skate behind a folding chair, and he’d been warned to make sure she kept both hands on the chair. But Pepper cared less that Gran kept her hands to herself and more that she stayed safe and didn’t break anything.

  There was a good possibility Pepper should’ve used a chair for balance too. Her arms windmilled while she tried to steady herself and keep her feet pointed straight ahead.

  “Relax,” Tony told her. His hands settled at her waist while he skated backward in front of her, that amused grin teasing his lips. “Trust your skates.”

  She latched onto his shoulders with her mittened hands. She loved that smile—so easy, so uncomplicated, so handsome.

  “I haven’t done this since I was a little girl,” she confessed.

  “Doing great.” He guided her into a curve while some eight-year-olds lapped them, laughing and shouting. “Not as good as you throw a softball, but you can’t be perfect.”

  “You saw me play?”

  “Saw video. One of your sisters sent me a link. Killed ’em out there. That grand slam you hit was a thing of beauty.”

  She tipped her head back and laughed, and her feet slipped.

  He gripped her tighter. Even before noon, he smelled like woodsy male and pizza sauce. Shouldn’t have been nearly as good a combination as it was.

  “That was a total fluke. Do you play?” The Bliss softball league was hardly the stuff of legends, but they had fun. Her grand slam had happened because of a couple of misthrows.

  “Like a boss.”

  He grinned again, she laughed again, and she almost slipped again.

  Which meant Tony gripped her tighter again.

  Maybe there was something to playing the helpless female every now and again.

  A mother and a toddler bundled up in a blue snowsuit skated past them. Pepper’s womb gave another pang at the same time her pride told her to pick up her speed.

  Getting passed by a toddler?

  But if she went any faster, she’d have to let go of Tony. And she very much didn’t want to let go of Tony.

  Not today. Not in three weeks. “Tell me about your family.”

  “Ah, my second least favorite topic in the world. I’ll bet you played softball in high school. Any other sports? You strike me as the wrestling type. Down on the mat, twisting arrogant assholes up like pretzels…” His thick, dark brows wiggled. “You can twist me up like a pretzel.”

  “That went okay Saturday night, didn’t it?” Oh, crap. There went her mouth.

  But he chuckled, and interest sparked deep in his eyes. “It did.”

  Did he want to sleep with her again?

  She wanted to sleep with him again. “Did I ever tell you that my sister Ginger told her first boyfriend that she was an orphan being raised by the nuns at our local parish? Want to guess what happened when some of my older siblings found out?”

  “Does it involve wedgies?”

  “No, that was Rosemary’s husband and CJ before he bulked up. Ginger’s boyfriend got the pig incident.”

  “What’s with your family and farm animals?”

  “We raised them.” And collected blow-up versions that Pepper didn’t want to talk about. “Your turn. Tell me something to make my family seem normal.”

  Being bossy wasn’t unusual in her relationships. But what was unusual was that she felt lighthearted about it today. She’d never have children. She didn’t need a husband. Hanging with Tony, getting to know him better, was just…fun.

  “Really not much to tell,” he said.

  “Liar.”

  “I’m the best of the bunch.”

  She laughed. “That ego. You are such a guy.”

  “You have no idea, princess peach.”

  That twinkle-eyed grin promised things that made her core clench. She wobbled on her skates and gripped his shoulders tighter. His legs widened and shifted, taking on her weight and steadying them both.

  Would it be wrong to lure him under the stands and talk him out of his pants?

  They approached Gran and her chair. Her feet were wobbly, but her dashing twentysomething assistant was right there to catch her.

  “Looking good, Gran. You’ll be doing double axels before you know it,” Tony said to her.

  “Triple or nothing,” Gran replied. “What’s with this distance between you two? Get closer. Act like you like each other. Make it uncomfortable for the Holy Ghost to fit in there.”

  “I can’t decide if she wants us to go at it like rabbits right here on the ice, or if she’s trying to turn me celibate for life,” Tony murmured.

  Gran’s left hand left her chair and headed in the direction of her assistant’s rear end. “Hands on the chair,” Pepper ordered.

  “Just trying to set a good example,” she replied. “Oh, look, honey. That little infant is passing all of us. Is he old enough to walk?”

  Yep, there went that three-year-old, lapping them again.

  Tony’s dark eyes were dancing with amusement, his grin bright and easy.

  Apparently they’d both needed this.

  “You okay if we go faster, Pepper?”

  “Can’t go any slower,” Gran said. “Sneak a kiss. Use some tongue. The boys like that. I won’t tell your mother.”

  “Yep. Scarred for life,” Tony murmured.

  “She’s an inspiration. Wouldn’t you like to have that much enthusiasm for life when you’re eighty-seven?”

  He opened his jaw, then closed it. “Not helping erase those mental images.”

  Pepper laughed again. There was something different about him today. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but she liked it.

  “Softball, volleyball, and basketball,” she said.

  “Pardon?”

  “You asked what I played in high school. Softball, volleyball, and basketball.”

  “Overachiever much?”

  Once upon a time, her achievements and drive had been a source of pride. “In some things. Obviously not in skating. What about you? Play anything in high school?”

  “Football. Surefire way to get the ladies.” He added an exaggerated wink that had her laughing again, but this time, her feet didn’t slip.

  Because this time, he skated closer to her, pressing his body against hers while they went into another curve.

  Gran would be so proud.

  She blinked up into his eyes, much closer than they’d been before she stumbled. “I don’t believe fo
r a minute that you were a football jock just out to score with the ladies,” she whispered.

  “Them’s fighting words, Miss Blue.”

  “Have you dated since your divorce? Really dated, or just taken a woman here and there to make people think you’re dating?”

  “And she hits below the belt too.”

  “We’re friends, aren’t we? Friends talk. Friends share. Here. I’ll go first. I’ve been to three ex-boyfriends’ weddings, one as bridesmaid—that was my cousin’s wedding—and I haven’t dated anyone seriously since I got to Bliss. Your turn. Have you honestly dated anyone since your divorce?”

  His dark eyes twitched every time she said date, but it was the hitch in his breath when she’d said ex-boyfriends that made a shiver skitter over her skin.

  “Your cheeks are pink,” he said. “Getting cold? We can stop.”

  “How many of your sisters and brothers have you told that we’re dating? Shouldn’t I know these things if they ambush me while I’m having lunch one day?”

  “Like your family ambushed me? They’d be disappointed if they got a single straight answer out of you.” He flashed a seductive smile that warmed her from her neck to her knees. “I know you’re up for the challenge.”

  “Don’t give me that male sex kitten look. I’m immune.”

  He laughed. “Sex kitten? You mean sex lion.”

  “Pushing it, delivery boy.”

  When was the last time she’d had this much fun? Not just with a man, but with anyone?

  The toddler who’d passed them went down. He flopped onto his back and wailed while they slid past.

  “You’re okay,” his mom told him. “Everybody falls. Come on, bud. Up and at ’em. You’ve got this.”

  Pepper blinked. A pang seared her midsection, but it wasn’t until she noticed Tony watching that she realized they’d slowed. His lips were pinched, the lines around them tight and white. Grief deepened the set of his eyes.

  An intimately familiar grief.

  He’d lost someone.

  A child?

  Was that why he was divorced? Was that what he’d meant when he’d said a family wasn’t in his life plan anymore?

  She reached for his cheek. He blinked, and easygoing, goofball Tony returned. “Getting better on those skates, Miss Blue. Think you can beat me to the door? Loser buys hot chocolate for all of us, including Gran’s new boyfriend. I’ll even skate backward to keep it even. And go!”