He charged the living room.
Kimmie was gone. Her bedroom door clicked shut. Josh tripped on her furry rug on his way toward the white door that interrupted the mint-colored paint on the wall. He reached for the handle, but the damn thing was locked.
“Me? Are you sure? Wednesday? Um, I’m supposed to work, but I can ask for the day off.”
No. No way. Mom played tennis on Wednesdays. Josh whipped out his Leatherman. Hell with the doorknob. He’d take the whole damn door down.
“Oh, right.” Kimmie giggled. “I should’ve thought about that. Of course Josh will give me the day off… Can you email me directions? I’ve never been there… Thank you! See you Wednesday.”
The hinge was on the inside of the room.
Dammit.
He knocked. “Sweetheart? I can’t find your shredded coconut.”
Kimmie flung the door open. She pocketed her phone, then smiled at him.
And damn if he couldn’t find a single ounce of mischief in that bright smile. “That’s okay. Too much coconut makes my dreams worse,” she said. “Your mom is nice. I like her. You got really lucky with them, didn’t you?”
Without waiting for an answer, she half-skipped across the room, grabbed an e-reader, and plopped herself into a big, round, goofy-looking wicker chair. The gray tabby had lost its hanger hat, and it bolted from beneath the chair. The other cat—the calico adrenaline junkie who had nearly attacked him in the doorway—streaked out of the bedroom, a blue cup stuck to its face.
It twirled in a circle, flung the cup off, then froze and stared at Josh again.
After a minute of indecision, it ambled to him and head-butted his leg. The cat was missing half an ear, and Josh had a sudden fleeting memory of a scrawny kitten he’d shared half a can of tuna with when he’d been on the streets.
It had been scrawny, but warm. Trusting.
And for those twenty minutes, Josh hadn’t been alone.
“Oh. Boo likes you now.” Kimmie smiled bigger. “See? Potential.”
And then she turned her attention to her book, and Josh might as well have not been there.
Those bloggers were becoming a better option with each passing minute.
But first, he had to prove to Kimmie exactly how much potential he had.
* * *
Kimmie hadn’t often eaten the snack cakes from Sweet Dreams—her mother would’ve disowned her—but she’d tried them shortly after Josh came into their lives. So when the scent of pineapple upside-down cake—good pineapple upside-down cake—came wafting into the living room, she paused in her mad pursuit of straightening her living room and sniffed harder.
Wow.
It actually smelled like cake.
She hoped Josh knew enough to add baking powder. Considering some of the Sweet Dreams snack cakes she’d tried, she had reasonable cause for doubt.
But then, she’d also doubted that he would stay. Or possibly, she’d hoped he would leave.
Yet here he was. Staying. Baking for her.
Kimmie had found it nearly impossible to make herself sit down, calmly, rationally, and as though she could actually concentrate on a book while he was in the room. But she’d done it. She would’ve pulled out the vacuum if it wouldn’t have sent Peep into spastic mode, along with making enough noise for Josh to realize she was cleaning.
For him.
Because Josh Kincaid was in her home. Making her dinner. Making her dessert.
And there was a little teeny part of her—the part that remembered dressing up in big fluffy Miss Flower Girl and Miss Junior Bridesmaids dresses and parading across a stage to thunderous applause—that was squealing like a teenage girl who had been asked to the prom by the most popular football player in school.
Josh hadn’t played football. At least, not according to General Mom’s documentation on him. He’d been on the baseball and golf teams, and now he played recreational basketball to stay in shape.
“Cheese?”
Kimmie jumped and dropped a stack of towels. Josh padded in from the kitchen. He plopped a plate of crackers, cheese, hummus, and sliced vegetables onto her newly dusted coffee table—a wood table she’d gotten at the resale shop and painted orange with white daisies—then plopped himself down beside the food.
On her green shag carpet. In his suit pants. With no obvious concerns about cat hair.
He’d ditched his shoes and only wore black socks on his long, narrow feet. He was also completely dusted with flour.
Kimmie’s heart squeezed out a ka-thump of wow. “Sure.” She tucked the towels inside her bedroom, then sat across from him on the floor. Peep took the opportunity to climb into Kimmie’s lap, turned four times, kneaded Kimmie’s thigh twice, and then collapsed with a contented purr.
Boo jumped onto the table and made as if she were about to lie down across the food. “Boo! Shoo. Bad kitty.”
Boo shooed toward the kitchen.
“Spoiled cats,” Josh said.
“Jealous.”
He didn’t smile. Didn’t frown either. And Kimmie’s face erupted again. She grabbed a Ritz and a slice of cheddar.
“How long have you been at Heaven’s Bakery?” Josh asked.
“Today? This week? Or working there? Or since I was a fetus and my mom was working there? Not that I remember that, of course—that would be weird, even for me, but—”
“Since your first paycheck.”
“Oh.” Kimmie studied the ridges on the cheese. He’d probably used a butter knife to cut it. And he’d probably gone through her cabinets and drawers too. She would’ve if she’d been alone in his condo. But only if she were alone. Josh, she was sure, was more brazen. “I started as a dishwasher when I was fourteen. I could bake a cake, color frosting, and pipe roses by the time I was ten, but I had to work my way up the same as everybody else at the bakery. No bride wants to hear that a teenager is in charge of her wedding cake.”
“Your mom teach you?”
“Mostly. Rosita helped some. She’s been there forever. She’s our level four master baker and totally brilliant with gum paste.”
Josh sucked his cheeks in as though she’d said something funny but he didn’t want to laugh. He cleared his throat. “Master… bakers?”
“Well, yes. Don’t you have master bakers at Sweet Dreams? No wonder those things are an abomination to the institution of cake.”
“And what level master baker are you?” Josh said.
“I’m a level three. Mom has strict rules about—oh!” Kimmie gaped at him. He was making a masturbator joke. An image of Josh, naked in the shower, soap suds trickling down a solid chest, his head arched back, his hand wrapped around his—no. Nope. She squeezed her eyes shut. And her thighs together. But she couldn’t will the heat in her cheeks to cool.
“Got the joke, huh?” Josh said.
She popped open one eye.
He was grinning at her. Completely amused at her expense. Not an ounce of shame anywhere.
If anything, it was the most honest smile he’d ever given her.
On a scale of one to deadly, it was already-arrived-in-heaven.
She gulped.
He toasted her with a red pepper slice. “Gonna think on that next time you see Rosita? What level’s your mother?” He popped the pepper in his mouth and watched her with unrestrained amusement while he chewed.
She squared her shoulders and refused to answer his question. “You started at Sweet Dreams when you were about fourteen too.”
That earned her a raised brow, though the killer smile and the dancing blue eyes didn’t waver. “Do you ever wonder if your mother keeps a file on you as well?”
“She doesn’t need to. I’m terrible at keeping secrets.”
“Yet you’re running a cupcake business on the side that she has no idea about. How does that work, by the way?”
Kimmie shoved the cheese and cracker into her mouth, then made the universal sign for sorry, I have food in my mouth.
A bigger, slower, bone
-melting smile spread over Josh’s perfect lips. He leaned into the table, an honest spark of interest joining the amusement. “Kimmie Elias, you have more secrets, don’t you?”
There was playboy Josh Juan glowing in the man across from her, but there was something else.
Something new.
Something intrigued.
Something as unnatural as the vampirates from her dreams falling in love with the poor goatpeckers.
“I had this dream once that she was pregnant with bigfoot’s love child, except bigfoot was being hunted by Buffy the Vampire Slayer because he was secretly Giles in disguise, but he could only be saved if they found the magic potion before they lost their shoes.”
The growing warmth in that smile that had gotten him named Chicago’s Hottest Bachelor by the Windy City Daily last year and the illusion that he was enjoying himself made Kimmie’s palms slick.
“And I never told her that,” she finished. “So, yeah, I guess I have secrets. Your turn.” She stuffed an apple slice in her mouth and tried to channel her mother’s tell me everything smile-glare.
Josh chuckled. “Can’t decide if you’re a cupcake or a mini-Marilyn in cupcake clothes.”
She was so not her mother. And even if Kimmie had fully wanted to flip him off, she wasn’t sure her fingers would’ve worked right.
She shrugged and grabbed another piece of cheese.
“You ever think of working somewhere else?” Josh said.
Her friends asked the same question on a regular basis. But unlike Josh, they only had Kimmie’s best interests in mind. Josh, she was more certain by the second, wanted her for more nefarious purposes than a few simple cupcake recipes. “Why would I?”
“Better pay. Bigger opportunities. Healthier working environment.”
“You know you can’t really make cake healthy, right?”
“Your stress levels would go down if your mother wasn’t breathing down your back every minute of the day.”
“Oh, she’s not there as much as you might think. Knot Fest commitments, BRA commitments, other commitments…”
“She’s not earning her paycheck?”
“That’s not—you’re not—you—ugh.” Kimmie fisted her hair in her hands. “She runs that bakery even when she’s not there. You’ve seen her. You’ve talked to her. You know what she’s capable of.”
“Yet you think you can keep secrets from her.”
Snap. Once again. Like rock candy shattering in her chest.
Everyone in Bliss thought she was a cupcake. That she needed protecting. That she couldn’t survive on her own. And she didn’t mind. They meant well.
But when Josh doubted her, when he insinuated the same things everyone else in Bliss believed, she wanted to fry his donuts. “What do you want?” Kimmie said.
“Come tour Sweet Dreams on Wednesday.”
He popped a cherry tomato in his mouth, as casual as if he hadn’t suggested that she come look around the equivalent of a sugar brothel.
“I’m not going to work for Sweet Dreams,” Kimmie said.
“Didn’t say that. Just offered you a tour.” He winked. “I take all my girlfriends there. And since you’re playing tennis with my mother, you’ll already be in the area.”
Fugglemuffins. She was playing tennis. With his mother. She’d been sure he was displeased about that, but now—now, he seemed to be enjoying the thought of Kimmie embarrassing herself, regardless of the hit his reputation might take by virtue of association.
She was almost perversely flattered that he wanted her cupcakes that badly.
But on the other hand, it was probably another attempt to raise her mother’s blood pressure. If General Mom had a stroke tomorrow—unlikely, since everyone knew robots, dictators, and General Moms didn’t have blood pressure—Kimmie would be Josh’s new partner to steamroll however he wanted.
“And since your mother wants you to seduce Heaven’s Bakery out of me, she’ll be glad to see her plans progressing,” Josh said.
Kimmie didn’t have an answer to that, so she didn’t try.
He was right.
Worse, he’d confirmed that he didn’t find her attractive or interesting or worth dating. He didn’t want her. He wanted something from her.
She might as well give up on Heaven’s Bakery now. She was a failure. She’d never be the businesswoman her mother was. She wasn’t built for it.
But she loved cake. She loved frosting. She loved art.
And she loved Bliss.
Maybe she couldn’t seduce the bakery out of him, but he was still here. And she could still Kimmie him to death.
He wanted her help?
He’d see exactly what she could offer. “Have you ever played Killer Bunnies?” she asked.
“Killer Bunnies?” he repeated, blinking the way people always did when they didn’t follow her brain’s train.
“It’s a card game. Not spades and clubs, kings and jacks cards. It’s like a board game, but with cards instead of a board. Here. I’ll show you.” She stretched up to the top shelf beside her TV and pulled down a bright blue box. “But I have to warn you, I never hesitate to use the nuclear warheads or the anti-matter raisins. Your bunnies are going down.”
Josh squinted at the box as though it were batter gone bad. “If you say so, Marilyn.”
“Call me that again, and I’ll curse you with a Terrible Misfortune.”
He swiped a hand over his mouth, but there was a grin lingering in his hooded eyes. “Don’t trash-talk a street kid, sugar. You’ll lose every time.”
Kimmie simply shrugged. “Guess we’ll see about that.”
7
Chicago’s Hottest Boyfriend Seen Dining Sans Sweetheart—Is A Split Coming? —Greta’s Gossip, Chicago Daily Sun
“You baked her a cake, let her set a date to play tennis with your mother, and got whomped in a game called Killer Bunnies?” Aiden said Tuesday night over Geno’s pizza.
“She beat me with a whisk.” Josh scowled at the scribbles on the wall. “A damn whisk. Weapon level one, and I rolled a fucking one.”
“I’m going to pretend you’re speaking English for a minute here,” Aiden said. “Dude, you’re really falling for this chick.”
Josh clenched a hand. He wasn’t falling for anyone. He was fighting to save Sweet Dreams. Just so happened that his adversary was funny as hell. And annoyingly good at weird games. “Kimmie’s entertaining.” He cleared his throat. “I’m taking her on a tour of the company tomorrow. Don’t be a Neanderthal.”
“You talk to your old man yet?” Aiden asked.
Josh’s pizza suddenly looked as appetizing as the Ghostie Toasties Halloween cakes he’d sampled at Sweet Dreams this afternoon. Unlike the last round of rumors, this round of layoff talk wasn’t going away. Aiden was catching on about how dire things were.
“Figure I’ll mention the idea for the new line after Kimmie’s tour tomorrow,” Josh said.
Aiden’s Irish flared up. “You throwing me under the bus and giving the cupcake lady my promotion? This was my idea.”
Was not, but Josh wouldn’t argue semantics with his friend.
Especially when he would’ve given Kimmie a job in the lab if she’d take it. Far more expedient to hire her away from Heaven’s Bakery than to talk recipes out of her.
“You turning into a girl?” Josh slapped Aiden on the back. “Wait and see if Dad bites before you take credit.”
“Blaming your sweetheart if he doesn’t?”
“Wouldn’t do that to Kimmie,” Josh said automatically. The weird part was, he meant it. Despite the joy Kimmie had taken in kicking his ass in Killer Bunnies—twice—she hadn’t had any malice in it. Not like her mother.
Her mother didn’t smile like Kimmie did. Her mother didn’t laugh like Kimmie did. Her mother wouldn’t have made this is delicious noises about his pineapple upside-down cake like Kimmie did.
That had his balls aching when he thought too hard about it.
Aiden helped himself
to another slice of the deep-dish pizza. Mozzarella oozed out the sides. “Damn well better do something,” Aiden said. “Appreciate working for your family, dude, but these rumors… Ain’t sitting right.”
“I got your back.” Josh’s stomach rolled. He wasn’t one to take responsibility for the whole world, but his family’s business could put Aiden out of a job if things didn’t turn around.
He needed Kimmie to love her tour tomorrow, for her to want to help Sweet Dreams. Or he needed Aiden to find recipes that not only tasted good, but would work on the Sweet Dreams equipment.
He also needed Dad to be open to the idea of a new snack cake line at a time when Sweet Dreams was financially strained, which Josh wasn’t even supposed to know.
And he needed to do it all yesterday.
There was a quick way. He could give Kimmie his half of Heaven’s Bakery in exchange for recipes.
But somehow, this had become about more than recipes.
It was about winning. About beating Marilyn. About righting that wrong that had been done to Birdie’s family.
He didn’t have an emotional attachment to the bakery itself, but it was the last thing Birdie had given him. The only thing Birdie had left him beyond the memories.
It was also one more bit of collateral.
Josh wouldn’t hesitate to spend every last cent of his trust fund to save the family company, but if it wasn’t enough, he’d sell his car. His condo. Everything.
But Heaven’s Bakery would be the last asset to go.
If Sweet Dreams was beyond saving, Josh would land on his feet. He’d been through worse. He knew he would be okay.
But what would happen to his parents? How would they survive? His chest tightened, and an old panic knotted his gut.
He’d lost his mother. He’d lost Birdie. He’d almost lost himself. He couldn’t lose the Kincaids too.
Even if they lived through losing Sweet Dreams, they wouldn’t be the same. Their pride, their resilience, their spirits would be broken.
They’d given him safety and security. He had to do the same for them.
Which meant he had to talk to his Dad. But he had to get those cupcake recipes first. Having an idea was one thing. Steamrolling Clayton Kincaid would take something else.
Sugared (Misfit Brides #4) Page 9