Courtship of the Cake (11 page)

“
Out of order
, huh?” I gave her a wicked smile as she pulled me in. Her stiletto kicked the red-lit button, and the countdown on the screen began.

“Oops, my bad!” she joked, and we mugged stone-faced in our masks for the camera before collapsing into laughter. “I thought it might buy us a few minutes of alone time.”

It was actually larger than most rented booths of its type, its red-and-cream-striped sides resembling an old vaudeville tent, and outfitted with a long leather seat and several hooks on the wall for photo props. More masks, as well as feathered boas and strings of beads, hung above us.

“Your sister's really into this whole Mardi Gras look, huh?” I asked as Dani draped herself over me. “The colors, the masks . . .”

“Did you know the Mardi Gras colors have meanings?” she asked, slowly removing her mask and setting it aside. She had the face of an angel, with a devilish look in her eye. “Gold for power,” she said softly.

“And?” I prompted, my fingertips rushing to touch the creamy skin unmasked. God, she was gorgeous.

“And . . . I'll get to the rest later. Now, let me get a look at you, mystery man.”

I pulled off the black and gold mask by its long-beaked nose. Finally rid of the cumbersome proboscis, I could pull her in close for a kiss on the lips. They were as soft and lush as the blooming buttercream rosettes I spun endlessly in the bakery, and I longed to trace them with my tongue, starting in a tight spiral and moving out.

She sighed and deepened the kiss, the lime and tequila on her tongue intoxicating me as it mixed with the heady scent of almond
and lavender on her pulse points. “You smell good enough to eat,” I whispered, moving my lips along her wrist and down her forearm as she snaked her fingers through my hair.

Her laugh was breathy. “I massaged the entire bridal party earlier. My wedding gift to Posy and Pat.”

She hit that sensitive spot again between my jawbone and ear, causing me to buck up against her, already rock hard and ready.

“You're a good sister.” I groaned as she gyrated slowly on top of my lap, gently tugging on my earlobe with her teeth. Cupping her ample breasts, I kissed my way, openmouthed, down the keyhole neckline of her dress, causing her to gasp as I flicked my tongue under the silky fabric.

“I'm the worst maid of honor, though.” Her fingers reached down behind her and caressed the hard-on already straining at the seams of my dress pants. “'Cause I'm so ready to bail on all my duties, run off, and have my way with you.”

This girl was driving me mad. My knee jerked, hitting the camera button again, and she threw her hair over one bare shoulder, glancing with a sly wink at the screen as the first flash popped.

She knew exactly what she was doing to me.

Well, two could play at this game.

I quickly flipped her on my lap, causing her to squeal in surprise and catch me around the neck. “Don't lose me,” she pleaded. The camera captured us tangled and gazing into each other's eyes.

“Never.”

I dipped down to drop a kiss on her lips for the final shot, feeling the flash bright behind closed eyelids. There my mouth lingered, gently exploring hers, long after I heard the finished photos drop down into their slot for pickup.

“Will your family miss you?” she asked as we finally came up for air.

I felt a twinge in my chest, caught somewhere between the lie that
had brought us together, and the truth that might break us apart. I just wanted—no, I needed—more time. I craved to know her.

“They won't even notice I'm gone.”

Hand in hand, we moved toward the exit door.

“Wait! The pictures.” I looped us back and palmed the double prints from the slot in the side of the booth, tucking them into my vest pocket just as a hand clapped on the back of my shoulder.

“Hurry,” a well-meaning guest urged. His next words caused the baker in me to stop in my tracks. “They're about to cut the cake!”

•   •   •

With shaking fingers, I thumbed to the back of my planner book. Tucked deep in the back pocket of the portfolio were both sets of photographs, the only tangible evidence I had of the girl who tortured my memory. But there was no time to brood over them, not with a bride and groom on their way.

SOCIAL CALL

“This is silly,” I blurted as Nash threw the car into park at the bottom of the hill. “Maybe we should go to Philly and check into the hotel first. Make some calls?”

Prepare your people?

While driving through his small hometown, the enormity of what we were about to do hit me, and I was suddenly nervous to meet his friends. Ten years was a long time to stay scarce, and he hadn't informed anyone of our impending arrival. While the main drag had been lively, this part of New Hope looked half-asleep and all the red carpets were rolled up for the weekend.

“Oh, come on. This'll be fun. It's been forever since I've busted Spencer's chops.” He gave my knee a pat, but his attention was on the rearview mirror, running a hand through his haystack of hair and doing a big-smile teeth check. “How do I look?”

“Exactly the same as you did when we left New York.”

Something about him did seem different, however, under the quiet canopy of the tree-lined street. I took in his whole ensemble: from
snakeskin cowboy boot tip to the four-hundred-dollar aviator sunglasses he pushed over his lank, dark blond locks. I couldn't put my finger on it exactly, other than the fact that he had been surrounded by fans, handlers, wranglers, runners, publicists, ass-kissers, his manager, and countless other musicians since the time I had met him. And now, in this sleepy little town of his birth, he had no one to hide behind.

Except for me.

“You go on inside through the front.” He cleared his throat and nodded at the deserted-looking bakery. “I'm gonna sneak through the back door and surprise him.”

“You sure your friend still works there? And he's not armed? What are the gun laws in Pennsylvania?”

Nash's laugh followed me out the car door. “He's the owner. And believe me. Spencer is a lover, not a fighter,” he called after me.

I hurried across the street, looking both ways as an inherent New Yorker, even though there was only one stoplight, blocks away, and barely any traffic. The handwritten sign hanging on the Night Kitchen's window read
Closed
in curvy, eclectic letters, but the heavy blue-black door yielded under my push.

Inside was nothing like any bakery I had ever seen. Rich marbled walls in a deep golden brown greeted me, rising up to a curved ceiling that was painted the same midnight blue as the front door. Tiny twinkling lights crisscrossed it like stars in the sky. High tables for two dotted the wood-planked floor and faced out for a street view, and a long bar of sleek black granite curved against one wall. But the showstopper was the bakery case that ran along the opposite wall.

Holy Mother of Cakes.

The selection was unreal, and the concoctions looked ethereal.

Every dessert has a story behind it.

The memory of my mystery man's words hit me so hard that I left fingerprints on the glass case just to keep myself upright. It had been Mick who had explained the tradition of the groom's cake, not to be
eaten at Posy and Pat's wedding, but rather to be boxed and sent home with the guests. “In days of old, single women would sleep with it under their pillows in hopes of dreaming of their future husbands,” he had added with a devilish raise of his brow. I'd already had to endure the cake pull, which was slightly less physical—and pathetic—than having to dive shamelessly for the bouquet. Mick had also shared the significance behind that Victorian practice, which New Orleans had made its own: stuffing little silver charms attached to ribbons between the wedding cake layers, which unmarried women pulled for good luck and fortune.

Why are single women depicted as always having to be plied and consoled with sweets?
I had challenged,
and how come you know so much about cakes?

I like stories
, he had replied simply.
Every dessert has a story behind it
.

Somewhere within the bakery, a clock chimed once.

One o'clock, on the dot.

“Dani?”

CHARMED, I'M SURE

“Mick?”

She had a voice that sounded like she smoked a pack a day, but a body that looked like a temple no one would dare desecrate. Just like I remembered.

I had ruled out hallucination, but there was no scientific proof that the girl I had thought of every goddamn day for the last eleven months was standing in my shop. And wasn't just a figment of my lonely and desperate imagination.

Until her shaking fingers made contact with the silver charm resting at her throat.

She had pulled it from her sister's cake that night, had laughed and swung it seductively from its satin ribbon before turning in my direction and slowly licking the frosting from it with a wink.

You'll be next, Dani!
an ancient relative of hers had crowed.

For Dani had pulled a tiny, silver three-tiered wedding cake as her charm.

“How in the—how did you—?”

Her eyes widened, just before mine were clamped into darkness by a pair of mammoth hands. Native fear iced my spine, just as cold as the silver ring crushing my cheekbone. Already hopped up on the adrenaline injection of her presence, I launched into automatic combat mode. My heel kicked back against my attacker's shin as my elbow swung into ribs. Hard.

“Christ, Spencer! I thought you were a lover, not a fighter,” gasped a voice that I had only heard via phone lines and the radio airwaves for the better part of ten long years.

Vision unblocked, I spun around. Ready, willing, and able to deliver a knee to the groin of my oldest friend in the world.

“Nash?”

He was doubled over and clutching his torso. Dani materialized at his side, helping him upright.

“What the hell did you do that for?” For a split second, I thought she was yelling at him, but then I realized the venom was directed toward me. “Do you always attack people who come into your shop?”

“Gee, maybe I should've called the cops instead,” I snarled, only satisfied when I saw her face grow crimson. Confirming my yearlong suspicions.

The New Orleans gendarmerie had descended upon the Café Du Monde at dawn. I keenly remembered the surreal feeling. Like out of a film noir. Especially with the rain, slicking the dust down from the landmark's awning and leaving it a shiny green and white. It had felt like an out-of-body experience, like I had been watching from high above and not dragged to the curb of Decatur Street like a dog.

My only crime had been believing she could've fallen for a fool like me.

Dani fussed over Nash, but he waved her away. “It's okay, babe. No harm,” he labored, “no foul.”

I hadn't recovered from my shock of seeing Dani, and couldn't reconcile why my best friend was sneaking through my kitchen and pulling the peekaboo act.

I needed a rewind. A do-over. What the hell was Nash doing here, and—

Wait.
Babe?

He grabbed me in a tight hug. “Hey now, is that a rolling pin in your front pocket, or are you happy to see me?” He had obviously recovered fast, as his lame baker joke mechanism was intact.

“Offset spatula, actually.” I thumped on his back. “Good to see you, man. You scared the daylights outta me.” My eyes met Dani's over his shoulder. “Never in a million years . . .” I murmured. The blush that spread across her delicate features turned my heart upside down.

“Ha, gotcha!” He grinned. “Did you meet your one o'clock appointment yet?”

1pm—James wedding cake consult.
Her name and number had been living in my appointment book for a week, and I hadn't even known it.

Nash slung his arm around my shoulder and propelled us around to face her. “This is my fiancée, Dani James. Dani, meet the infamous Mick Spencer.”

If Dani was doing any recovering of her own, it wasn't apparent from her expression. She swung her curls back off her shoulders and pasted a smile on. “I've heard a lot about you,
Spencer
.” Her hand extended to grasp mine, and I saw the flash of platinum and diamond.

“The man, the myth, the legend,” Nash added, for nobody's real benefit.

Fiancée.
Oh, fuck me sideways. Seriously?
Touching just her hand was torture. I wanted to pull it against my heart, to pull
her
out of the shop with me, never to return. But I settled for a quick and meaningful squeeze.

“Please.” I reddened. “Call me Mick. Most people do.”

“Except for Mandy Davis, who I heard was calling you ‘Oh God' last night,” Nash laughed, giving my arm a conspiratorial punch. “Bear told me about your hookup. On her daughter's wedding night, no less!”

The bakery was missing a trapdoor. Falling through the floor would've come in handy right about then. Dani's eyes were on the hardwood as well, and I had to wonder if she was wishing for the exact same escape route for herself.

“When did you talk to Bear?”

“Didn't.” Nash helped himself to a chocolate chip cookie from under the glass dome next to the register. “He texted me.”

Seriously? Bear had nothing better to text our mutual best friend about? He couldn't drop a little hint about something slightly more important? Say, the tenth birthday of the child Nash had never seen?

“Dude, I totally tapped that back when I was in high school!” Nash bellowed. “Could've given you my
crib
notes, if you know what I mean.”

It was impossible to not know what he meant. I cringed inwardly.

Dani cleared her throat. Not that I could've ever forgotten that she was there, but Nash apparently had.

“So, Dani . . . is that short for Danielle?”
I searched for you,
I tried to convey with my eyes.
Scoured the Internet for your sister's wedding announcement, knowing you shared a maiden name.
Hunted through the White Pages . . .

“Danica.”

Ah, no wonder.
I hoped every Danielle James in the tri-state area would forgive me for cyber-stalking them. It hadn't occurred to me there might be a variant.

“So, um . . . how'd you two meet?”
And where? And when?
My brain wanted to scream. And why.
Why, why, why?

Nash's arm slid around Dani's waist, pulling her against his hip. “We met on tour, if you can believe that. She was a damsel in distress.”

Dani gave a cute snort. “You thought I was a groupie in heat.”

“My bad.” Nash gave a shrug and winked in my direction. “I'll never forget, seeing her out the tour bus window for the first time. She was standing by this old, broken-down van at the side of the road, waving a white lacy thong like a matador—” He butted his forehead against her shoulder, like a big bull come to rut.

“Oh?” I managed, swallowed hard. The espresso I'd had earlier threatened to burn its way back up my throat.

“It wasn't a
thong
, you perv!” Dani gave a tug on his long locks. “It was a camisole. And it was the only thing white I had.”

I felt cheated out of my own first glimpse of her, seeing her waving that white kerchief in that New Orleans second line. That was my precious memory, and now Nash had bragging rights to a similar vision? Where was the justice?

While I had had very little growing up, Nash had had even less. Living on a slice of the Half Acre's property in a broken-down trailer with his father, inheriting Bear's hand-me-down clothing. I remember how jealous he had been the year Sindy and Walt bought me a Huffy Green Machine big wheel for my birthday. I was the neighborhood badass on that thing, until Nash knocked me off and bloodied my nose for a turn.

And now he had something that made the eight-year-old green-eyed monster in
me
want to pop him in the face for.

“It was his tour manager who stopped, concerned,” Dani supplied, bringing me back to the here and now. “This one?” She thumbed back at Nash, who was still clutching her waist. “He offered me a condom and
a real ride
.”

“Hey, that was a compliment, darlin'. There were already three other girls on the bus ahead of you that night, and I only had two condoms with me. You do the math.”

“I'm not doing anything or anybody.” Dani laughed. “Isn't that what I told you that night?”

She gave him a push away, and went to look at the baked goods at the end of the case.

Nash dropped the rest of the cookie he didn't offer to pay for into his mouth and brushed off his hands. Somewhere deep in the pockets of his designer jeans, his cell phone was ringing. The clown actually had his ringtone set to “Jumpstart My Heart”—who uses their own biggest hit as their ringtone? Someone way too impressed with himself, obviously.

“The hard-to-get act; such a turn-on, right?”

The lopsided grin he flashed me was his liar face. I hadn't seen it in a decade, but it wasn't one I'd forget. He'd gotten out of homework, detention, and speeding tickets with that grin. And he had gotten into plenty of panties with it, too.

I really didn't want to think about Nash being anywhere near the vicinity of Dani's panties. Instead, I joined her at the end of the case as he took his call, and hoped to get a real word in edgewise. Pretending not to know this woman, when every bit of me craved to make up for lost time, was cruel and unusual punishment.

“That is gorgeous,” she said softly, her eyes fixated on the sole wedding cake on display. “Is it real?”

I stared down at my creation under glass as well. Sometimes I could barely believe these hands could be capable of something so breathtaking. I baked every cake sample to keep on display when I knew a bride was coming in, and then it became part of our dessert selection. Amazing how many repeat customers came back, just to sample this week's “wedge o' wedding,” as I called it. Guys would pull me aside with a wink and a nudge, just to tell me what powerful aphrodisiac effects it had had on their dates.

Gone were the days of Sindy and Walt's unchanging and pristine white displays. I still baked with love, but it was my own brand of love.

Beautiful. Fleeting. And perishable.

“Totally real. The only dummy in my shop is the one you're
marrying,” I said, willing her to look at me. Her head jerked up and a pained look lit across her face but only for a second.
Let me in, Dani. It's me, Mick.
We had shared so much that night. Maybe it hadn't been all the right things, or enough. But it had been amazing all the same. Her eyes channeled hurt, followed by anger.

“I'd rather be with a dummy than a thief,” she hissed.

Her accusation sent adrenaline on a collision course with my racing thoughts. She had a hell of a lot of nerve coming into
my
establishment and throwing half-baked assumptions in my face. “I might've lost my job that night, but I had nothing to do with that robbery. Turned out I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. With the wrong person, apparently.”

Shock and doubt drifted across her delicate face as she absorbed my words, before boomeranging a retort back at me. “Mother of the bride last night, huh? That had to score double points on your Bang the Bridal Party Bingo game.” The words were a low blow, but I couldn't deny I deserved them. Dani took a step back from the bakery case. “Sorry you lost your job, but I hope you won at your little game, player.”

“Ha, you think
I'm
a player?” It was hard to keep my voice down with Nash pacing thirty feet away from us and yammering away on his cell phone. I leaned in close, relishing the blend of sweet almond and lavender that seemed to be with her always. She was currently the most breathtaking sweet in my shop, and my hands ached to touch her. “Who do you think taught me everything I know?” I whispered against her hair. “You can't marry that guy, Dani. I've known him all my life, and . . . no.”

“There's more to the story . . .” She bit her lip, as if she needed reminding to refrain from saying more. “And you can't deny you lied to my face that night.”

“There's more to
our
story! You left before I could explain.”

I had raced back to her hotel room after the police had released
me. Only to find the maids inside, stripping the bed.
Wait!
I had begged, needing to see for myself.

Sure enough, nestled under the pillows had been the small white box holding her slice of groom's cake.

Had she dreamed of me that night?

Without another word, I pulled the Spiderman cupcakes from the case and began to box them for transport in clear, plastic clamshell containers. Feeling Dani so close, knowing she was watching me, gave me the shakes worse than any hangover or sugar high could.

“If every dessert has a story behind it, what's with the dozen Spidermen?”

“Nash's son is turning ten today.” I crimped the tops shut and threw a sideways glance her way. “He
did
tell you he has a kid, right?”

“Of course I know about Logan.” Dani's shoulders rose defensively. “But . . .”