Fate Interrupted (4 page)

“Yeah, I moved
here three weeks ago.”

His eyebrows
rose into the middle of his forehead.
“Where from?”

“Des Moines.”

He nodded.
“Iowa, huh?
You must love corn.” A deeply seeded cringe
bloomed inside of him as soon as the words slipped from his mouth.

An uneasy laugh
broke from her lips. “My sister and her husband relocated here to open a dessert
bar in downtown, so I came to help.”

Dean stopped at
the bench and pinched his eyes together. “That is awesome.
Where
at?”

“In
the Third Ward.
It’s called Sugars.”

“Great name,” he
smiled, almost saying something else but deciding to quit while he was almost
ahead. “So how’s business been?”

“Really
good.
We have a long menu of specialty drinks, so we get a nice after dinner crowd.”

“So do you make
the drinks or bake the desserts?”

“I mostly bake,
that’s kind of my thing.”

“What’s your
best seller?
Cupcakes?”

“Booze.”

He laughed.
“That’s not surprising in Milwaukee.”

“So I’ve noticed.”

Dean lay back on
the bench as she stepped behind the long barbell. “Well, I can’t wait to check
it out. I bet your cupcakes are amazing,” he said, staring up at her breasts.

Her face
flushed. “They are,” she replied softly, scanning the long bar and heavy plates
through uncertain eyes.

“Now, if I get
pinned, I just need you to call 911. Okay?”

Her smile made
his heart skip a beat.

Grasping the bar
with a shoulder width grip, he pushed it from its cradle, trying not to
blatantly admire her well rounded breasts. Her smell filled his senses as he
lowered the heavy bar to his chest and pushed it back up with her staring down
at him from above. It was surreal. The fluorescents ignited a halo-like glow around
her, like an angel sent from Heaven’s gate. The reps went by in a dizzy blur. He
took his time, never wanting it to end. On the last rep, he feigned fatigue and
struggled with the bar only halfway back up. His face turned red and her
eyebrows dipped together.

“Call 911,” he
choked, his cheeks ballooning with pressure.

She sprang into
action and lifted the bar with both hands, helping him drop it back into its
cradle with a loud clang, emphasizing its heavy weight for the whole room to
hear.

He sat up,
gasping for exaggerated breaths. “Thank God you were here! You just saved my
life.”

She came around
the bench, half smiling and half frowning, her hand covering her heart. “Are
you okay?”

“Thanks to you I
am,” he panted. “Bit off more than I can chew.”

She unleashed
the warmest smile he had ever seen, one he wouldn’t trade for the world. “Well,
I’m glad I could help,” she said, not sure if he was pulling her leg or not. Her
emerald gaze glanced to the front doors. “Well, I should probably get…”

Dean hopped to
his feet, giving himself a head rush that made him stumble a bit. “The least I
could do is show you around sometime…you know, for saving my life and all.”

She smiled
again, not nearly as warmly this time, and dropped her gaze to her black Adidas
with hot pink soles. “I’m sure you would’ve survived.”

He wiped his
forehead with the towel.
“How about Saturday night?”

She looked back
up,
those green eyes making his head swim.

He cleared his
throat. “Not a date,” he quickly added. “More like a tour thing.”

She squinted at
him.
“A tour thing?”

“Yeah,
with drinks and dinner and stuff.
Maybe a bullhorn.”

A smirk pulled
at the corner of her lips. She nodded to the front desk. “Have you given her
the
tour
?”

Dean followed
her nod with his mouth hanging partway open. Stacey smiled at him again. He
swallowed dryly, grasping for words. “Stacey? She’s just an old friend.”

She slowly
nodded. “I have to work late on Saturday, but thanks for the offer.”

He watched her
make a beeline for the front doors, stunned by his inability to close the deal.
“Hey!”

She stopped and
turned to face him from across the room, as did two older women chatting
nearby.

“What’s your
name?”

She sharpened
her gaze and hesitated before answering. “Evy.”

It was the most
beautiful name he had ever heard, especially coming from those sweet red lips.
“I’m Dean.”

She flashed him
a bashful smile and continued for the glass doors. He watched her butt shake as
she went, caught up in its spell, unable to tear his gaze away even after she had
slipped outside.

“I’m free for
dinner Saturday night.”

Dean’s brow
folded. He slowly turned to a gray haired woman leaning on the machine next to
him. A wry grin cut across her wrinkly cheeks, her eyes shimmering like
diamonds.

Dean couldn’t
stop a smile. “I’ll pick you up at eight.”

She laughed sharply
and slapped his arm. “Are you kidding? I’d starve to death by then! I eat at
five on the dot so make it four-thirty.”

“Bummer,” Dean
murmured under his breath, glancing back up front and wiping his face with the
towel. He stared past Stacey, the wheels spinning in his mind, knowing what he
had to do.

Chapter
Four

Downtown Milwaukee
was warm and bustling. A joyful weekend vibe filled the active streets as couples
walked arm in arm and cabs whisked drunken passengers to their next watering
hole, where the party would continue long into the night. Smiling faces adorned
the candlelit tables inside Sugars. The patrons lounged on red chairs and
velvet couches, which were as inviting as the racks of colorful cupcakes and illuminated
bottles of booze behind the counter.

Evy slid a tray
of chocolate butter cream cayenne cupcakes, with a red sauce drizzled atop the
swirled frosting, into the glass case up front. Soft jazz floated down from the
speakers in the ceiling as her eyes swept across the pretty setting. She
smiled, happy to be a part of something so magical. Last year at this time, she
was managing a sports bar and wondering where she had gone wrong. Yet somehow,
she had managed to stay positive and patient and it had all finally paid off.

She turned and
went through a half door that swung freely into the kitchen, the bright
lighting immediately extinguishing the romantic vibe up front. She checked the
timer on one of the ovens and returned to a tray of tarts cooling on a large
stainless steel table in the middle of the room. Using both hands, she
carefully squeezed homemade whipped cream from a cone-shaped bag, unable to stop
thinking about the guy at the gym. It had been nearly a week and she was still
seeing his face. Evy couldn’t remember his name -
Steve
maybe - but had no trouble recalling his striking features
and broad shoulders. Tall guys had always been a turn on for her and she cursed
herself for not giving him a shot. She wasn’t
that
busy tomorrow night.

She squirted the
whip cream in circular bursts around the tarts, unnerved by the wetness
building inside her jeans. She imagined running her fingers through his brown hair
and kissing those full lips. He looked like a good kisser, too, like he
actually enjoyed a bit of foreplay rather than just diving right into dessert.
She should have said yes. It had been a long year since finding out her fiancé
had gotten more than just a lap dance from some stripper at his bachelor party.

Evy moved to the
next row of tarts, trying to convince herself that her plate was too full to be
wasting time messing with some player. Nevertheless, the guy from the gym kept
rising to the top, smiling at her with that mischievous grin, ravaging her with
those big brown eyes. She shook her head, fighting the flush of heat between
her legs, desperate to erase the image of his sculpted biceps with that vein
running through them that always turned her on. The last thing she needed right
now was more drama.

A wistful sigh
escaped her as she kept hearing herself shoot him down inside her head. Not every
guy was Richie, she told herself. Evy refused to become one of those woefully
inadequate heroines from some sappy romance novel. She knew she was smart and
pretty and would be damned if some cheating scumbag would take that away from
her.

She grunted and
moved on to the next row. After Richie, however, she had doubted herself a
great deal but putting some time and miles between her and that dark day when
that racy video had mysteriously shown up in her inbox had already done wonders.
It had been a long twelve months and her needs and desires, whether she liked
it or not, were beginning to awaken.

The tall guy’s
gorgeous face, with that scruffy jaw and pointed nose, flickered through her
mind again. She shuddered as the need in her gut moaned with want for the first
time in a long time. She squeezed the bag of whipped cream with both hands,
imagining him naked. Defined hip bone cuts were her weakness and he probably
had those too. She imagined slipping her hands down his gym shorts and finding
him hard as a rock.

“You okay?”

Her heart
fluttered as she looked up to see Ben standing there with long yellow dish
gloves hiding the sleeves of tattoos covering his muscular arms. “God, you
scared me,” she said, blushing and returning her attention to the tarts. “I’m
fine, why?”

He shrugged and
set a clean pan on a silver rack along a yellow painted wall. “You looked like
you were a thousand miles away.”

“Just
trying to make these perfect.”

He rested his
hands on his hips and inhaled, his chest stretching his t-shirt to its limits.
“What’s his name?”

“What’s whose
name?” a petite brunette said, bursting through the swinging door like a Texas
tornado.

Ben fumbled a
pack of smokes from his distressed jeans and nodded at Evy. “Your sister is
fantasizing about having sex with some dude.”

“Ben!” Evy
barked. “I am not.”

The tiny brunette
with the same emerald colored eyes as Evy inhaled sharply.
“Evy
Burnett!
That is wonderful! Who is he?”

Evy’s face
turned as red as a barn. “I wasn’t fantasizing about anyone. Try minding your
business for once, Brooke.”

Brooke and Ben
exchanged glances and moved in closer, dropping onto stools around the large
island table.

“Where did you
meet him?” Brooke asked flatly.

Evy released a
defeated sigh, dropping her shoulders and stopping the whipped cream.
“At the gym last Sunday.”

“I knew it!” Ben
grinned, popping a smoke between his lips.

“Was he hot?”

Evy bit back a
grin.
“And tall.”

“
Oooh
,” Brooke smiled brightly.
“Sounds right
up your alley.”

“He asked me out,
too.”

Brooke’s mouth
went slack. “I hope you said yes.”

Evy shook her
head.

“Why
not?”
Ben asked, pulling a lighter out.

Evy cocked her
head to one side. “Do you know what kind of guys hit on girls at the gym?
Douchebag players.”

Creases rippled
through Brooke’s forehead like time had just sped up and aged her ten years. “For
your information, Evy, douchebag players know what they’re doing in bed. They
will service you right.”

“She’s got a
point.”

“Not my style, you
guys know that,” Evy replied, returning to the tarts.

“Well, you
better make it your style because you need to get laid,” Brooke said.

Ben’s eyes
silently darted back and forth between them.

Brooke tightened
her pointed glare. “How long has it been?
A year now?”

Evy finished the
last tart and set the whipped cream bag aside. “I think I’ll survive.”

Brooke laughed
sharply. “Not without spending a fortune on batteries!”

Ben chuckled and
shook his head. “On that note,” he said, exiting out a back door to have a
smoke in the alley.

Brooke grabbed Evy’s
arm, demanding her full attention. “Do you want to grow old with a vibrator
named Sparky? Is that what you want?”

Evy frowned
without response.

Brooke’s jaw
dropped. “Oh, don’t tell me you don’t even have a vibrator.”

An impish grin
crept across Evy’s face as she whisked the tarts up front with Brooke tailing
her like a cop. Evy slid the tray above a rack of frosted brownies and looked
up as the bell rang above the front door. Her stomach turned when she saw the
guy from the gym walk in. “Oh shit,” she mumbled under her breath, locking eyes
with him.