Bootscootin' Blahniks (39 page)

Scanning her scribbles, she wedged the crumpled sheet between her teeth. Surveying the trove of totes and tubs tucked into the coupe’s trunk, she identified the containers needing to come out first.

Shoving the paper back into her pocket, she loaded her arms, her body bearing much more than the weight of her bake-and-take containers. The added pounds of pressure to turn this dream job into Sweet Destiny’s coming-out confectionary ball damn near stifled her creative zest.

Sucking up her insecurities, Jules stood tall, except for a slight tilt to her left due to the solid silver candlesticks she refused to leave out of her table setting. Cody had insisted they were overkill. She’d argued he was used to the tacky décor making The Lunchbox Café a uniquely wonderful, trashy dining experience and had no clue regarding the needs of a high-society crowd. He’d finally succumbed to her persuasive skills, and packed the candlesticks.

Water splashed off the Italian marble of the lion-head fountain serving as the centerpiece for the Cruz estate’s magnificent entrance and sprayed Jules’ cheeks. She could certainly use the help keeping her cool even though the brisk, mid-afternoon breeze contributed its own walloping whip. She lifted her head to the autumn sun, soaking in the radiant light, hoping it pierced through the darkness of her doubts.

Her philosophy for Sweet Destiny’s success was that her food would reflect not only
her
personality but also serve as a mirror image of her clients. Each edible piece of art would personify her bakery as well as her patrons…confectionary characterizations of both chef and customer.

Here she was with her first chance to test her business model, and she’d screwed herself from the get-go. She’d agreed to do this event, having never met her client. After one, fifteen-minute phone call from Sienna’s mother Maureen, Jules had taken the job.

Maureen sounded harmless enough, definitely a bit over-bearing, but after growing up on Manhattan’s Upper East Side under Aunt Tulip’s tutelage, over-bearing was way inside Jules’ comfort zone. Needing the exposure to Nashville’s upper crust customer base, many of whom served on the Fan Fest Board of Directors, she’d accepted Maureen’s offer.

What Jules did know about the Cruz’s, she’d found Google-ing or between the glossy pages of Country Weekly Magazine. The family, according to paparazzi lenses, ruled Nashville’s social scene. Sienna and her sisters Sabrina, Suri and Sasha were the Kardashians of Music City, except their father Cameron was no Olympic champion. He owned Hit Mix, Nashville’s CMT chart-topping record label.

Considering the flavor mix of the pudding she hoped would clinch her new clients’ confidence in her talent, Jules wondered if the Cruz’s, Sienna in particular, were sweet or tart. Guess she’d discover soon, and either thank or stomp on her irrepressible desire to say ‘yes’ to opportunity when it dialed her number.

She rested her containers against the fountain’s ledge, peaking through the sides of the clear plastic tubs to check on the berry pudding. She’d garnished each cobalt blue, hand-blown glass dessert cup with Cody’s fresh berries and mint sprigs. Topped with shaved dark chocolate and crème’ fraiche on site, she’d reduce the essence of a Tennessee summer into a berry pudding dream.

Second guessing her decision, a staple of her pre-event checklist, her stomach swished and swirled like a bottomless well of worries. What if the Cruz Camp didn’t like summer? Maybe they detested this time of year. After all, they’d chosen the holidays for Sienna’s wedding, going for a winter, not summer solstice theme.

The horrendous implications of a negative reaction to her pudding gelled into a sobering reality check. Jules picked up her containers. Veering around the fountain and circular drive toward the front door, she ignored her suppressed desire to make a run for her car.

She stopped and ground the toe of one of her Jimmy Choos against the brick-pavers lining the sidewalk, as if fresh-scuffed soles would secure a hold on her future.

Damn
. She was an idiot. The Cruz family must hate summer or they’d have set the wedding then.
Shit
. Maybe one of them or all were also allergic to berries.
Oh, God
. What if they were lactose intolerant? Maybe she should skip the crème fraiche. What if Sienna and her sisters were counting carbs to squeeze their bootalicious butts into size zero gowns?

“Are you going to the door? Or are you holding the meeting out here?” Cody asked from behind her.

Jules’ heart pounded against her eardrums.
Damn she hated people sneaking up on her
. She struggled to keep her grip on the tubs.

Swooping the top two containers out of her arms, Cody nudged the small of Jules’ back with the lids, sending her in forward motion.

“Of course I’m going to the door. I was simply making sure I had everything I needed.” She caught her stiletto heel in between one of the walkway bricks and stumbled up the steps to the door. Horror-stricken she’d about taken a nosedive onto the threshold of her future she made a valiant, although far from graceful, recovery effort.

Squaring her shoulders to the mammoth oak door, she turned her head over her shoulder to address Cody. “Glad to see you could make it on time. I’ll have to ask Sienna the secret to getting you to be prompt.”

“What the hell?” Cody’s voice pitched at an abnormally high tone. “Why would you think
she’d
know anything about that?”

His face turned as reddish-purple as his champion beets.

Jules had never seen him flustered. He was usually the epitome of collected, calm and cool. Although seeing
him
blush settled her rapidly firing nerves a bit.

Jules rang the Cruz’s doorbell. While country music-inspired steel guitar chimes signaled their arrival, she shifted from heel to heel. A big believer in equal opportunity, she kept the tension circulating to all parts of her body while attempting to balance her load.

Taking a couple deep breaths, she pictured Aunt Tulip’s unfaltering bravado. She never let fear stop her from reaching for her goals. She’d raised Jules to go after life’s obstacles with gusto, equipping her with an insatiable, at times insane panache for traveling the paths least amenable to their desires.

Jules tapped her foot to keep her lower extremities in the moment, fearful they’d buckle if she didn’t keep moving. Her left arm now numb from the candlesticks, she considered that perhaps she should have listened to Cody and left them behind. But the ambience junkie inside her knew she’d taken a great hit for the team.

The Cruz’s door opened.

Game on, Jules thought. Ready for what, she hadn’t a miniscule inkling.

A tiny sliver of a man peered over his bifocals, moving his head from Jules’ feet, up and over her bake-and-takes, to her head. The twitch of his mouth and emotionless face masked whether or not she’d passed his entrance exam.

“You must be Ms. Lichtenstien of Sweet Destiny. Am I correct in my assumption?” The man tucked his chin into the hollow of his neck like a snapping turtle.

“That would be me, and this is my business partner Cody Weiss.” Jules stepped aside with way too much gusto, forgetting the brick wall to her right, cracking her containers against the house, almost smashing the berry pudding.

Jules looked at Cody, who stood stiff as white chocolate bark, the look on his face indicating he wished he could hide under his hat forever. So much for her manly-man hero rising to the occasion. What the hell was up with him? And why couldn’t he have left his hat behind for the sake of professionalism? Some Music City cowboy institutions she’d never get used to. Not that he didn’t look mighty fine in the damn thing.

She looked back at the snapping turtle, deciding she didn’t like him. Aunt Tulip would have a field day knocking him down a few glorious pegs. She had no use for people who put themselves on a higher plain than others. And she didn’t mind taking issue with such unacceptable behavior. Could be the therapist in her. Could be her Buddhist ideals. Whichever. No matter. After one session with Dr. Telaine Patricia Cohen — most times affectionately called Aunt Tulip by Jules and her friends - this pompous ass would be freed from his affliction.

“If you’d be so kind to let the Cruz’s know we’re here and show us to the room in which we’ll be meeting, we’d greatly appreciate it,” Jules said, holding back her urge to thwart his arrogance with a polite dressing down.

“The pleasure is mine. Trust me,” the turtle said, with the congeniality of a pre-programmed robot.

He then looked past Jules and straight at Cody.

Heat from an ugly energy ricocheted between the two men, trapping Jules in an intensifying inferno. “Do the two of you know each other?”

“It’s been a long time, Diesel.” Cody stepped in front of Jules, offering his hand to Diesel the best he could while holding the tubs.

“Yes, it has. But not long enough.” Diesel turned and walked through the foyer, leaving Cody’s hand untouched. “Follow me, Ms. Lichtenstien. We’re meeting by the pool.”

Jules looked at Cody with a care-to-tell-me-something glare.

She’d been wrong about the snapping turtle thing, she thought, silently cursing the man for his treatment of Cody and for not even so much as offering to help lighten her load. Christening him Diesel the Weasel, Jules bit her tongue and followed the Cruz’s gatekeeper from hell.

“Cody catch that door and don’t let it find your gluteus maximus,” The Wiesel said tossing his head back, letting go of a snotty laugh.

After doing as he was asked, Cody fell into step beside Jules.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, “I should have said something about this.”

“You don’t say,” she hissed, trying to ignore the dread filling the pit of her stomach. “Start talking, Cowboy.”

“Sienna and I know each other,” Cody said his voice heavy as if talking about Sienna was last on his list of preferred topics.

“How well?”

“Well.”

“Cody,” Jules growled, not appreciating his non-detail revealing answer.

“We were engaged,” he said in a barely audible voice then lowered his head, taking refuge once more under the brim of his Stetson.

An unexpected pain squeezed Jules’ chest dealing her the hurt and shock of being kept in the dark about Cody’s past. A past that now threatened to haunt her dreams too. She’d been friends with Cody for going on six months. Hell, close friends in her estimation. Close enough she’d have thought he’d confide in her if someone had affected him at this life-altering level.

He’d never once hinted he’d just come out of a serious relationship. Let alone one that ended in what was obviously a substantial portion of drama. She wanted to pound him, but seeing his shoulders slump, she couldn’t bring herself to continue throttling him. Not now anyway.

She shook her head, trying to clear the fog damn near suffocating her. Like thinking had ever brought her good results. All the more reason she’d always chosen to go for the gusto, and would now, leaving the mental acrobats for people who hadn’t lived through the loss and pain she had.

“Hey, Sweet Man. Look at me.” She’d do anything to soothe his distress like he always did hers. “What do you say we just make the best of this meeting, turn loose our charm and talent and see where it gets us? We’ll deal with your Sienna problems when we’re done here.”

“Oh, I’m done here. There’s no hope for me. I’m not going to be the cause of you losing this gig you need and deserve.” Cody’s crystal blue eyes clouded with sadness and possibly regret. “I think if I just go–”

“No way. We’re in this together. If you walk, so do I. I asked you to help me because I believe in you. I need you to pull this off.” Jules readjusted the candlestick bin, about ready to ditch it in the giant potted palm trees lining the French doors leading to the pool house.

“I’m nothing but a liability to you and Sweet Destiny. I should have known I could never walk back into the Cruz’s life…even on a professional basis.”

“Listen. I’m not throwing in our aprons because of Diesel the Weasel.”

Cody laughed, giving her hope he’d hang tough with their plans. Not that she blamed him for wanting to bail. The Cruz’s probably weren’t going to be on her favorite people list. She’d seen the hurt in Cody’s eyes, and couldn’t easily forgive the person or persons who put it there. But she needed this job too bad to bow out.

“Diesel the Weasel has a lot of pull in this household. He’s a good thermometer of the entire family’s opinions.” Cody looked up to the vaulted ceiling and shook his head.

“Well he pulled the wrong strings with me,” Jules said, starting toward the pool house. “I’m not letting him scare me away from this job and neither are you. Let’s get this party in motion, partner.”

She stepped past the palms. Her power Choos clacked against the tile floors of the garden room separating them from the challenges waiting poolside. All she had to do was pretend she felt as assured as her gait.

“Don’t say I didn’t try to talk reason into you,” Cody said, following her.

“We both know I’m beyond logical decision making.”

Jules caught sight of The Weasel standing beside three, large, round tables bordering an A-list pool rivaling the likes of those on the set of The O.C….vanishing wall bordering a breathtaking view included.

“Thank you, Diesel.” She set her containers on the ground next to the tables, shaking the blood back into her arms, “but we shouldn’t need all three of these. That would be twenty-four people. It’s just Sienna, her sisters, and Mrs. Cruz.”

The Weasel’s thin lips split into a sinister smile as if he’d spotted new prey.

“I’m afraid Mrs. Cruz added a few more to the guest list.” Diesel twiddled his bony fingers like The Grinch about to wreak havoc on the unsuspecting people of Who-ville.

Clearing her throat, Jules took her chef’s coat out of the top bin and tossed one to Cody.

“How many more?” She looked straight into The Weasel’s black marble eyes, daring him to get the best of her.

“I’m really not sure, you’ll have to ask Sienna’s wedding planner,” he said.

What wedding planner
? Jules had been told she’d be working alone…as she preferred. Tired of The Weasel’s haughty bullshit, she yanked out the candlesticks, knowing exactly where she’d like to stick them.