by Joss Wood
He’s leaving, Sturgiss. On his way out. That was the deal.
“Replace the box of whatever she ordered,” Flick told Tiffany. “Take it out to her with our apologies.” Flick scowled at her dog, who’d slunk into the bakery after her. He was looking up at her lovingly, a smudge of sugar on his nose. “You aren’t allowed in here, sunshine, and you know it.”
Rufus stared at the ceiling, deliberately ignoring her. “And because I can’t take you anywhere, because you embarrass the hell out of me, you’re getting nothing but kibble for a week, and you are definitely getting de-naded.”
Rufus dropped to the floor, covered his eyes with his paws, and whimpered.
Instantly feeling guilty for taking her frustration toward Kai out on her dog, Flick dropped to her haunches and rubbed his ears before dropping a kiss on his nose. “Right now, I’d like to de-nad your running buddy! Why did he come down here? What was the point? Just to torture me about what I’m not going to get anymore of? Can we do that, Ru? Can we take him to the vet too? Maybe we can get a two-for-one special? Huh? What’cha think, bud?”
“Waaaaaaarrroooooooooooooooooooo!” Rufus howled his anguish.
“You men! You all stick together,” Flick muttered, disgusted. With her dog, with Kai, with the entire day.
The bakery phone rang. Tiffany answered it and leaned over the counter, the receiver in her hand. “It’s your aunt.”
“Of course it is.” Flick took the phone and snapped a quick hello.
“What are you doing about my house, Felicity?”
In that moment, a can of gas and a book of matches sounded like a fine idea, Flick decided.
Chapter Six
AbbyM: It’s Happy Hour at the Fox tonight, girls! Who is ready to PARRRRTY?
SawyersFutureWife: Is Sawyer going to be there?
KevTheFirefighter: How many more times is Pippa going to have to beat Sawyer before he caves and admits that she’s a better pool player than he is?
***
What was a girl to do after a day like she’d had? What was a girl to do on any Friday night in Mercy? Drink mojitos, of course, and Jack made the best ones around. She and Pippa arrived at the Smirking Fox just after eight and had promptly kicked Kevin and his fire fighter colleague off the two bar stools at the corner of the massive L-shaped bar that dominated the room. Everyone knew that she and Pippa had first call on those seats. Kevin complained good-naturedly, but they moved up a couple of seats and he bought their first round of drinks.
As well he should, since he’d dropped not one but two rescue kittens off at Flick’s house a few hours earlier. The tabby had bolted up a curtain and stayed there, hissing, and the other had climbed into the laundry basket, deciding to hide out under her dirty clothes. They’d come out when they were hungry or needed to pee. She hoped.
She also hoped that they weren’t tormenting Rufus or destroying the furniture while she was out painting the town a pale shade of pink.
The Smirking Fox was their local hangout, with cheap beer and a live band on weekends. It was a combination Irish pub, community meeting place, and pickup joint. Everyone in Mercy, married or single and everything in between, loved the place. Since it was her brother Jack’s business, and the only place they could dance, she and Pippa spent a lot of time at the Fox. They’d mastered the art of flirting with guys as their brothers, cousins, and friends kept a beady, overprotective eye on them.
As a result, leaving from the SF with a guy for a night of unbridled passion took the skills of a Black Ops operative. This was okay, temporarily, since she’d had all the sex she was going to have for the foreseeable future. Flick looked over at her gorgeous cousin and wondered about the comment she’d made earlier about her sex life. “So, when last did you get lucky?”
Pippa, used to her conversational hand grenades, just rolled her eyes. “What the hell?”
It wasn’t rocket science. “Well?”
Pippa, placed her drink on the bar and threw her hands up in the air. “Fee, we’re sharing a house. Don’t you think you would’ve noticed if I brought a guy home?”
Which meant precisely nothing; yesterday’s craziness had happened at Kai’s house. And just like that Flick was remembering the assured slide of Kai’s tongue into her mouth, the heat and solidness of his chest against her nipples, his broad hand on her butt. Enough, she told herself. If she carried on thinking about his mattress skills then she’d spend the rest of the evening with damp panties. And she’d have an ache between her legs that would necessitate some self-love later, which would probably leave her even more frustrated since she’d recently experienced the wonderfulness of the real thing.
Determined to stop thinking about Kai’s scorching, bone-melting, inhibition-dissolving moves, Flick took a huge sip of her drink, swallowed, and pulled herself together. Think about something else, anything else. Gina’s obsession with filling her house with crap—she was not going to call it hoarding—would be an excellent distraction but completely off-limits. Actually, this was as good a time as any to talk to Pippa about the bakery, and her conversation with Moses earlier. Hopefully it would distract her from obsessing about Hot and Sexy and Gone.
“I need to talk to you about the Artsy Tartsy,” Flick said, sucking on a cube of ice.
“It’s going really well. I think Grandma Jean would be proud of what we’ve accomplished,” Pippa said. “Since we inherited we’ve doubled the revenue and the place is pumping! And we love working together.”
Flick flashed her smile. She did love working with Pippa, and they were good together; Flick filled their display cases with yummy baked goods and ran the front of house, while Pippa, the more studious of the two, did their accounting, orders, and payroll.
“I do love working with you. Mostly.”
Pippa straightened her back and pinned her to her chair with a hard stare. “And what is that supposed to mean?”
Jack, Flick’s oldest brother, slapped his hands on the bar and leaned into their space. “My two favorite girls. What’s new?”
Tall, broad shouldered, and far too good-looking for his own good, Jack was the chief flirt and biggest fox in the bar. The bar made a ton of money and the extended Sturgiss family staunchly believed that it was due to Jack’s bachelor status and his ability to flirt with a tree stump and get a response.
“Go away, Jack,” Pippa growled. Out of the corner of her eye, Flick saw Jack’s eyebrows rise and the lift of his hands. No one ignored Pippa when she employed her seldom-used hard-as-nails voice.
When Jack moved away Pippa sent her a tough look. “Explain.”
Flick wondered where to start. She’d never been completely excited about being the resident baker. She knew how to bake but she was a chef by profession, and a good one at that. “Okay, first, the bakery is too small for all our customers. Our customers like to come in, sit down, and enjoy their coffee and a pastry at a table. We don’t have enough tables.”
“We don’t have room for more tables,” Pippa pointed out.
Flick waited a beat. “We would if we took over the bookshop’s lease.”
Pippa groaned.
“Pips, just listen, please?” Flick pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. “I’ve been thinking about this all afternoon.” She’d had to think fast because she needed a decent excuse to present to Pippa for hiring Moses.
“Ray has had the bookshop next to ours for a hundred years but he wants to retire. In this recession no one wants to buy his business, especially when so many people have e-readers now. If we took over the lease, we could knock a hole through that wall and expand the seating area of the AT, maybe do breakfast and lunches, occasionally dinners.”
Pippa just looked at her, eyebrows raised.
“I know that I haven’t been doing this for long but I’m already bored with making macaroons and cupcakes and bread; I’m not even that great
a baker! I want to cook fish and chicken and risotto again,” Flick said, wrinkling her nose.
“But you’re so good at baking,” Pippa countered.
“It’s not me!” Flick moaned, putting her back to the bar and looking out onto the rapidly filling up bar. And that brought her to the subject of Moses and her way to get out of doing the grunt baking. “I saw Moses today.”
Pippa looked at her. “Gran’s old baker? I thought he left town ages ago.”
“He did, but he’s back.”
If Moses had been in town when they re-opened the bakery, they would’ve offered him a job on the spot. Moses had left their grandmother’s employ a few years before she died and the subsequent bakers she’d employed had been dreadful. As a result the quality of the bread and baked goods had steadily declined, along with the bakery’s revenue. But many residents of Mercy still remembered Mo’s baking, and if she never had to hear “Your bread is good dear, but it’s not quite as good as Mo’s” again, she’d die a happy woman.
Pippa crossed her arms, her pixie face scowling. “Did you offer him a job?”
“I did.” Flick saw the annoyed expression on Pip’s face and held up her hand. “Don’t get huffy; we both know that you would’ve said yes if I’d asked.”
Pippa didn’t answer that but Flick knew that she was right. Pippa raised her eyebrows. “So, if Moses is taking over the baking from you, what are you going to do? Because we do not have the money to expand the business. Nor do we have the money to buy out the lease and to renovate.”
“I’m still going to be baking—we’re only taking him on a part-time basis, for now.” While walking Rufus she’d pushed the thoughts of Gina’s house and Kai Manning—and his hot body and bad-boy vibe and scorching kisses—out of her head and had happily focused on the idea of growing the business. “But I’d like us to expand the business by doing some catering.”
“Sorry, what?”
“Parties, functions, weddings. I’d also like to make meals, for singles or for families. Healthy, hearty, lovely meals that people can freeze and heat up when they want them.” Flick fingers tapped the bar counter. “I’d prepare a weekly menu and post it on our website and we have a Tuesday and Friday delivery. The customer orders the meal he or she wants, pays for it, and I spend Monday and Thursday cooking my ass off!”
Pippa tapped the bar with her finger. “It sounds—”
“Brilliant, amazing, incredible?”
“Feasible. Tomorrow we’ll sit down and draw up a business plan, work out some costs, discuss this properly.” Pippa sent Flick a stern look. “And if you ambush me again . . .”
Flick bumped her with her shoulder. “What?”
“I’ll cut your bangs when you’re sleeping,” Pippa threatened.
“Deal.”
That went better than she’d thought it would, Flick thought. It was her turn to buy a round so she ordered two glasses of white wine from Wendy, Jack’s bartender, since Jack was leaning over the bar, whispering into the ear of a bottle blonde. She had cleavage you could stash a baby in and her frame looked too skinny to support such a huge rack. Flick desperately wanted to suggest that she eat a cheeseburger or five. Jack’s taste in woman was abysmal, as per usual. He was constantly distracted by big hair and bigger chests, the idiot.
“Sawyer’s just arrived,” Pippa told her after Wendy placed their drinks in front of them. Flick looked toward the door and there he was, dressed in a pair of battered jeans, boots, and a blue T-shirt that clung to his broad chest in all the right places. His hair was messy and he looked rough and tough and hot. He hadn’t taken three steps into the place before he got offers from three different women to buy him a drink. And probably to take him to bed.
Possibly an offer of marriage if his stalker from the forum was here, as she’d promised to be.
Flick shook her head. “Bees to honey. They just can’t resist them, can they?”
“And he loves being irresistible,” Pippa said. “Thank God that neither of us have ever had feelings in that direction. Can you imagine being his girlfriend and having to fight off the masses?” Her distaste was painted on her face.
“And you said that with a straight face. Well done, honey,” Flick said, her tone even, but with mischief dancing in her eyes.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I have never considered Sawyer to be anything more than my friend.” Pippa swatted her thigh when Flick lifted a disbelieving eyebrow. “He’s not my type.” Pippa hadn’t been able to make that statement while looking Flick in the eye since they were thirteen.
Just friends. Pffft!
“But Kai seems to be yours.”
“It’s just sex, Pips.” It took a huge amount of effort to sound and look as casual as she did.
“Which, judging by the goofy look on your face, he’s obviously very good at,” Pippa stated, her tone bone-dry.
“He was.” Oh, what was the point of trying to play it cool? Pippa knew her inside out and she wasn’t fooling anyone. “I just look at him and I want to jump him.”
Pippa elbowed her in the ribs. “You did that already, in the middle of the afternoon. I do understand your attraction to Kai—he’s a good-looking guy. But he’s so not my type. He seems too”—Pippa looked for the word—“intense for me. All mysterious and serious and dark and broody. Too much of a he-man.”
Flick caught the look Pippa shot at Sawyer and decided to stir the pot.
“Sawyer’s also like that,” she said. “I think it’s part of the ex-military, don’t-talk-to-me-about-what-I-did-there attitude they give off.”
“And that’s part of the reason I keep my distance from Sawyer. I don’t know him anymore. I used to talk to Sawyer about everything. But we stopped doing that when he stopped talking back. He’s changed. He’s harder, tougher, wilder.” Pippa pointed her finger at Flick’s nose and then at her wineglass. “And what is said in the bar stays in the bar. Never to be discussed again.”
Interesting, Flick thought. That one sentence explained a lot. Pippa always dated quiet, intellectual, soft men. Men she could handle? Men she felt safe with? Very interesting indeed.
“Anyway, I’ve had my moment of insanity and with Kai gone, I’m back to normal,” Flick said.
“Really? You think so?”
Pippa gestured to the door and Flick didn’t need to turn to know that Kai had stepped inside. There was a beat of silence, a shift in the energy, a movement within the tectonic plates of the earth. Suddenly the bar that was her social haven, the place she felt safest in the world, was transformed into a place of intrigue, danger, and heightened anticipation.
Kai was still in Mercy. Shitcrapdamn.
This wasn’t the way this was supposed go, Flick thought, doing a mental head thunk on the bar. He was supposed to be on plane, doing something somewhere else. That was the reason, the only reason—okay, apart from the fact that he was hot as hell and she was horny—that she did what she did yesterday. If she’d known that he was staying in town, that he’d be here longer, then she would’ve been sensible and kept her distance.
She didn’t want to deal with him, with how he made her feel. She had things to do, problems to work through; she did not need him around to complicate her life.
So why was he still here?
Flick sucked in her breath as she turned around to watch the subject of their conversation winding his way through the tables to Sawyer’s side at the far end of the bar. God, look at him, all strength and control and don’t-mess-with-me attitude. He wore jeans and a plain white button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing tanned forearms corded with muscles and raised veins. A high-tech watch circled his left wrist.
He was the ultimate bad boy, she reminded herself. But not in the flirty, mischievous, funny way her romance novels usually described. He was arrogant, super confident, and she knew
that he didn’t give a damn what anyone thought of him. Rough, tough, dangerous, hard-ass. He was a bad boy on steroids.
And she wanted to do him, right here, right now, right on the bar. She barely suppressed a moan.
Crap, she was in so much trouble.
Pippa jammed her elbow into her ribs. “Did you just whimper?”
“No!” Flick yelped and although there was no way he could’ve heard her from across the room, Kai turned his head to look at her. His golden eyes clashed with hers and Flick felt all the air being sucked out of the room. She tried to haul some in but there was none.
“Breathe, you idiot.”
Pippa slapped her between the shoulder blades and, startled out of her trance, Flick pulled in a desperately needed breath. Dragging her gaze from Kai’s face, she blinked at Pippa. “What the hell? That hurt!”
“So would falling flat on your face when you pass out,” Pippa hissed. “I thought you said that he was leaving.”
Flick glared at Kai’s back. “That was Plan A. The good plan.”
“What’s the bad Plan B?” Pippa cocked her head.
“I’m going to pretend that yesterday didn’t happen and go back to my original plan of avoiding men.”
Pippa’s laughter rang out loud and true. “Yeah, don’t know if that’s going to work, ’cause he looks like he wants to eat you up in one big gulp and you look like you’ll let him, so . . . good luck with that.”
She needed more than luck, Flick thought. She needed a damned miracle.
***
Kai had come out for a beer, to shoot some pool and unwind, but because he was currently having shitty luck, his latest wet dream was sitting across the bar looking far too take-me-to-bed amazing.
He took a sip of his beer as his heart rate inched upward. That long hair he’d had his hands in was pinned to her head in a tangled knot and her outfit of skinny jeans, a pale pink tee, and a black vest was conservative, but she still managed to look hot and classy.
He glanced at a blonde in a tiny skirt and tight shirt walking past them and thought that there was a great deal to be said for going for the less-is-more look.