Just Desserts (3 page)

A four-hour drive to a family bakery in a small South Jersey town for a layer cake was hard to explain.

Not to mention the fact that Finn was a lousy liar. Sins of omission. Plain old evasion. And that old legal standby: obfuscation. He was no damn good at any of them.

“He wants a cake from Goldy's Bakery.”

“Why?”

“Why?” Finn parroted. “What are you, four years old? Because he wants it.” Superstars wanted what they wanted at the exact moment they wanted it, and as a general rule nobody on the payroll ever asked why.

At least not to the superstar's face.

“You know I'll figure it out sooner or later.”

Anton was his closest friend. He would trust the guy with his life, but not with Tommy's secrets.

“When you do, explain it to me,” Finn said. “I didn't see this one coming.”

He had done everything he could to talk Tommy out of this, with no luck. “What's the problem?” Tommy had asked him during one particularly heated exchange late last night. “I'm not trying to hurt her. No matter which way it plays out, she's in a win-win situation.”

Finn didn't believe in win-win situations. Somebody always came out on the short end of the winning stick and normally it was his job to make sure it wasn't Tommy Stiles. In a perfect world, the idea made perfect sense: a business transaction conducted in a public venue with little chance for messy emotions to come into play. Unfortunately Finn knew Tommy too well. The second he saw this woman who might be his daughter, logic and reason would fly out the window and they would all end up screwed.

“That's it?” Anton said. “That's all you're gonna give me?”

“I shouldn't have given you that much.”

“This better be some cake,” Anton muttered.

“Looking to steal a few trade secrets?”

“I'm an amateur, baby,” Anton said with a laugh, “but I wouldn't mind copping a few riffs from a master baker.”

“You're sounding cynical, m'man. She's supposed to be damn good.”

“I'll be the judge of that.” Anton had taken a few series of classes at the Culinary Institute upstate and periodically threatened to quit the band and cook full time.

“We're looking for Goldy's,” Finn said as he rolled to a stop at a traffic light. “Number four eighteen.”

A bank. A card shop. A one-hour photo shop with a
FOR RENT
sign in the window. Blockbuster. Two dentists. One gynecologist. A holistic therapist who sold handmade candles on the side.

East Hamptonites liked to say they moved out to the end of Long Island for the “small-town” atmosphere, but they were kidding themselves. The Hamptons had become Manhattan East, almost as fast-paced, and definitely as competitive as anything you'd find on the little island on the other side of the East River.

Lakeside was the real deal and it would send most of them screaming for their air-conditioned Range Rovers.

“Up there,” Anton said, pointing. “Next to the dry cleaners. Somebody just pulled out.”

Finn angled Tommy's shiny black Escalade into the parking spot. He was beginning to see the hand of fate at work.

“It's small,” Anton said, gesturing toward the storefront with the sign
GOLDY'S…SINCE
1969
stenciled across the plate-glass window. An old man sat on a lawn chair in front of the dry cleaners next door and watched them the way most men watched the Super Bowl.

“It's Jersey,” Finn said with a shrug.

Which pretty much explained everything.

 

Trish, one of the high school girls Hayley was currently mentoring, burst into the kitchen looking like she had just bumped into Justin Timberlake and then ricocheted off Johnny Depp.

“There's two guys outside who want to see you and they're unbelievably hot!” Trish was seventeen, the age when the arrival of any biped with a Y chromosome rated a breathless announcement. “One of them looks like a rock star from, you know, way back in the eighties.”

Ouch. She had been Trish's age in the eighties.

“A rock star?” she asked, lifting a brow. Rock stars were in short supply in Lakeside.

“A rock star,” Trish confirmed. “And he's wearing leather.”

There was only one reason an aging leather-clad hottie would show up at Goldy's Bakery at three o'clock on a Wednesday afternoon and it had nothing to do with brownies, cheesecake, or bagels.

“Tell him Mr. Goldstein doesn't live here anymore.” And that Mrs. Goldstein couldn't be happier about it. Not even sending him his monthly share of the store's profits dimmed her joy.

“But he didn't ask for Mr. Goldstein. He asked for you.”

Why did that surprise her? She was the Goldstein with a bank balance, after all. It had been a while since someone had come looking for her ex but the knot in her stomach was painfully familiar. The faint stench of danger still lingered in the air. She wished she had a dollar for every angry enabler who had shown up at Goldy's in search of the reluctant Mr. Goldstein. She'd be able to buy him out once and for all and still have money to spare.

“Then tell him I'm not here.”

“But, Mrs. G., I already told him you were.”

“Then tell him the truth,” she said. “I'm busy working on a cake that should have been finished an hour ago. I can't spare a second.” And here she'd thought her life would settle down after Michael moved to Florida to mooch off his mother. The man's problems had the half-life of uranium.

Trish rearranged her pretty features into an even prettier frown. “He really wants to see you, Mrs. G. Maybe—”

Hayley could feel the hot breath of the Cumberland County Association of Female Realtors on the back of her neck. She whipped out The Look, the same look every mother on the planet had down cold, aimed it in Trish's direction, then hoped for the best.

“I'll tell him,” Trish mumbled, then pushed through the swinging door to deliver the bad news.

The Look had stopped working on Lizzie when she was seven, but it was nice to know she still had enough maternal firepower at her command to keep her young staff in line.

She pressed her ear against the swinging door but she couldn't make out Trish's words, just a high apologetic string of female sounds that was followed by a male rumble. Leather Boy had a good voice, baritone, a little smoky. She couldn't make out his words either but Trish's answering giggle conjured up some painful memories of herself at that age.

First a girl giggled, then she sighed, and the next thing you knew she was in Vegas taking her wedding vows in front of a red-haired Elvis with an overbite. You knew you had made a bad choice when Elvis slipped you his divorce lawyer's business card while you were still shaking the rice from your hair.

She listened closer. Trish said something girly. Leather Boy rumbled something manly. This time Rachel, her other counter girl for the week, giggled too, a sound that sent Hayley's maternal early-warning system into overdrive.

Rachel Gomez was a serious straight-A student bound for Princeton next year on full scholarship. She needed the paycheck more than any mentoring Hayley might have provided her. Rachel had probably never giggled before in her life.

If Rachel giggled, then even Lizzie might not be immune. Fourteen was when it started, that fizzy sensation in your veins, the yearning for things you couldn't define, the sudden realization that boys were infinitely more interesting than global warming or the fate of the humpback whale.

Fourteen was also when young girls parted company with their self-confidence and traded in their love of math and science for a date for the prom.

Sometimes she wanted to lock Lizzie away in her room with her computer, her books, and a cell phone (maybe), and not let her out again until she was twenty-one. Thirty sounded better but even fantasies had their limits. The advisor at Olympia Prep had suggested that Lizzie might be better served intellectually by skipping the rest of high school and starting college in the fall but Hayley was dead set against it. Lizzie might be brilliant when it came to science but when it came to life, she was still only fourteen.

The world could be a scary place. A mother did her best to protect her kid from fast cars, drunk drivers, broken bones, flu, the common cold, but there was nothing she could do to protect her kid from growing up. No matter what you did or how well you did it, your little girl wasn't going to stay a little girl. Right before your eyes she was going to grow up on you anyway and all you could do was pray she didn't follow in your foolish footsteps.

Once upon a time, Hayley had believed that a good woman (her) could turn a bad boy (her ex) into a knight in shining armor (pure fantasy). Ten years of marriage to Michael Goldstein had finally drummed the truth into her head. People didn't change with time. They just became more of who they were to begin with.

In the real world bad boys didn't turn into knights in shining armor. Bad boys grew up to be even worse men and the world would be a much happier place if little girls were taught that basic fact along with their ABCs.

Why didn't women teach their young how to cope with the things that were really important instead of how to walk in their first pair of heels? Why didn't they make a point of sitting their girl children down and telling them the truth about men instead of letting some guy in a leather jacket seduce them over a tray of black-and-white cookies?

That was one of the many reasons why she had helped institute the mentoring program at the high school. Lizzie claimed her overflow worrying needed an outlet but it went far deeper. She saw herself in those girls, insecure, struggling, hungry for love, and ready to hand over their futures to the first guy who came along.

Those idiot girls out there were like ripe fruit on a very low-hanging branch. The slightest breeze would be enough to shake them from the tree and into the waiting arms of Leather Boy or someone just like him and their entire lives would be changed forever.

Except it wasn't going to happen on her watch. With apologies to the good real estate agents of Cumberland County, it was time to prepare for battle.

“Stay here,” Finn said to Anton. “I'm going to make a call.”

He smiled at the dark-haired counter girl who was pretending she wasn't listening and ducked out to phone Tommy. The old man was no longer sitting in front of the dry cleaners. He was perched in the window looking out. The wind had kicked up and a light rain was falling. He ducked under the bakery awning but couldn't get cell service on his phone.

He finally managed a connection by climbing into the backseat of the car and leaning against the window.

He dialed Tommy's cell and was flipped immediately to voice mail. He hung up, then dialed again just in case. Same thing.

“Damn,” he muttered. He had forgotten all about the daylong string of interviews Tommy was giving in support of next week's hospital benefit.

It was probably a waste of time but he left a message.

“Listen, I'm here in front of the bakery. I'll do it if you feel that strongly about it, but as your attorney and your friend, I thought it was in your best interest to give you one more chance. I'll call you when we're on our way back.”

Finn had no compelling argument on his side. No relevant facts or figures to help plead his case. Just a gut-deep instinct that this was the wrong way to go.

He punched in the number for the house and was routed to voice mail there too.

Calling Willow's cell didn't strike him as a good idea. That would make one hell of a voice mail message.
Hey, Willow. I'm trying to find Tom. Tell him I'm parked in front of the bakery owned by his (maybe) thirty-eight-year-old daughter who's the ex-wife of a guy who has more judgments against him than you have
Vogue
covers…

Nope. Not a good idea.

It's not your life,
he told himself. Not his family. No matter how close he was to the extended Stiles clan, he was still an outsider. He could advise, he could warn, he could question, but when push came to shove Tommy was the one driving the bus.

All he could do was pray he wouldn't drive that bus right off a cliff.

 

The last time Hayley had seen that much leather was at a Village People reunion concert in Atlantic City fifteen years ago. This guy was basically wearing a longhorn. Leather pants. Leather vest. He probably chewed leather instead of tobacco. He was built like a wrestler, stocky and muscular with forearms larger than most people's thighs. He sported the requisite tats, diamond studs, and more rings than fingers. His shaved head gleamed under the fluorescent light.

Everything about him screamed trouble.

From the expressions on Trish's and Rachel's faces, Hayley wasn't a minute too soon.

If he so much as crooked one of those bejeweled fingers in their direction, those two idiotic little girls would follow him right out the door and into the biggest mistake of their lives.

Twenty years ago she had done exactly that and it would be nice if somebody finally benefited from her mistakes.

“Trish!” She sounded like a marine drill sergeant on steroids. “Rachel! I need you two in the kitchen.”

Rachel stared at her wide-eyed. Trish looked like she was in a trance.

“Now!” Hayley barked, and the two teenagers sprinted past her.

Even Leather Boy straightened up.

She could get used to this.

“I'm Hayley Goldstein,” she said as she rounded the counter, “and if this is about Michael, I can't help you.”

“Anton Mezvinsky.” He looked a whole lot less dangerous when he was puzzled. “Who's Michael?”

“You're not looking for my ex?” If she sounded wary, it was because she was. Process servers and debt collectors could be very sneaky. She had learned that the hard way.

“I'm not looking for anybody.” He gestured toward the street where an enormous black SUV had claimed pride of place in front of the shop. “Finn had to take a call. I came along for the ride.”

They stared at each other for a full second or two. She was surprised to note that he had very kind eyes. Dark brown, thick lashes. A touch of sweetness where you wouldn't expect it. Not that she was letting down her guard for even a second, but still…

“Anton, unless you're looking to buy a lemon meringue pie, I don't think I can help you.”

“If your lemon meringue is half as good as that deep-dish apple I tried, I'll take two.”

“You tried my deep-dish apple?” He wasn't local. She knew that for sure. They didn't have table service. So where did he get a slice of Goldy's apple pie?

“Trish gave me a sample.”

Trish was giving out samples?

“Makes a customer feel welcome. Great idea.”

Anton was right. It was a great idea. Too bad it wasn't hers.

“The cardamom was another great idea.”

She blinked and zeroed back in on Anton. “You tasted cardamom?”

“A dash,” Anton said. “Faint but it rocked.”

“Cardamom's my secret ingredient. Nobody's ever identified it.”

Anton grinned, a surprisingly charming sight in a muscular, scary, leather-clad, bald guy. “It's not a secret anymore.”

“Are you a baker?”

“Baker, chef, short-order cook. In my business you need something to keep you sane. I'm thinking maybe one day I'd like to open a place of my own, but that's a way off.”

Part-time baker, part-time loan collector? Her guard went back up. “So what's going on here, Anton? You seem like a nice guy. I mean, you know your cardamom and that has to mean something, but you know and I know that you didn't come here to admire the baked goods. Either tell me what's going on or—”

Anton raised his hand to stop her. “Wait,” he said. “Let me get Finn. He'll explain everything.”

Fin? Was that one of those mob nicknames like Paulie Walnuts or Vinny the Chin? Her ex didn't exactly run with the Mensa crowd. Visions of a Tony Soprano wannabe with a chip on his shoulder and a score to settle sprang to life and she debated the wisdom of locking the front door and putting up the
CLOSED
sign while there was still time.

Anton approached the SUV parked at the curb. She watched, fascinated, as the passenger door opened and a suit stepped out. The Suit towered over Anton. His shoulders were as wide as a running back's, something that was either the result of good genetics or an even better tailor. The rest of him was long, lean, and extremely easy on the eyes.

She busied herself wiping imaginary fingerprints from the glass countertop as The Suit said something to Anton, straightened his tie, then strode across the sidewalk to the front door with Anton riding shotgun. He didn't walk like a guy who spent his life in suits. His walk was loose, easy, and (why not admit it?) sexy. Not that how he walked mattered, of course. She was just saying.

“I'm told you're looking for me,” she said as soon as the door closed behind them. She had never been good at playing games, which probably explained why she rarely had a second date.

“Finn Rafferty,” he said, extending his right hand. “You're Hayley Maitland?”

“Hayley Maitland Goldstein,” she corrected him. Like it or not, that was what was on her driver's license.

He looked surprised. “One of the counter girls told me you were divorced.”

She needed to have a long talk with Trish. “I am divorced,” she said. “I never got around to switching back to my maiden name.” Not that it was any of his business. “What about you? Married? Single? Divorced? Gay?” Let him see how it felt.

“Divorced,” he said. “Occupational hazard.”

Uh-oh.

Their eyes locked and for a moment she almost forgot he was probably there to collect on her ex-husband's debts. He wore a suit but there was definitely a bad boy lurking beneath the fancy tailoring.

“The counter girl also told me you weren't here,” he continued.

“I shouldn't be. I should be in the kitchen working on a commission, so if we could get to the point, I'd appreciate it.” She had learned the hard way how to handle her ex's cohorts and it wasn't by flirting with them.

“Is this the way you usually treat a potential client?”

“You mean you're not here to—” She caught herself midsentence. No point airing the Goldstein dirty linen if she didn't have to.

“I'll pay double the going rate if you'll finish that sentence.” He managed to say it with such good humor that even she had to laugh.

“There's a going rate for family secrets? I could be a very rich woman.” She glanced at the clock then back at The Suit.

He got the message. “Then I'll get to the point: I need a cake in the shape of a set of drums and I hear you're the best baker for the job.”

“A set of drums? I can do that.”
In my sleep with my favorite spatula tied behind my back.
A little fondant, some chocolate paste, a secret stash of foam, and a wave of her magic wand and she could re-create anything from the string section of the philharmonic to Aerosmith in their prime.

“There's more,” he said. “We need to feed two hundred.”

She quickly did the math. When you had a kid in a fancy private school, you couldn't help seeing things in terms of quarterly payments.

“We did a wedding reception for five hundred last spring. The main cake was in the shape of a pair of swans. I can show you photos if you like.”

“I've already seen them.”

“Trish again?” That girl was either a natural resource or a world-class yenta.

“I did my homework. In the last year you handled the Citibank reception at McCarter in Princeton, two election-night parties in Harrisburg and Trenton, and private functions for some very well-known families.”

“Tell me your name again so I can do my homework too.” Google. A woman's best friend.

“Finn Rafferty.” He handed her a business card with lots of information printed on it. East Hampton caught her eye.

She looked up at him. “You're a lawyer?”

“You have something against lawyers?”

“And you're from East Hampton?”

“You have something against Long Island?”

“I'm just wondering why a lawyer from the eastern end of Long Island would drive all the way down to South Jersey to buy a cake.”

“You look like you think I'm going to slap a subpoena on you.”

He was closer than he knew. “What I'm thinking is that I'm pretty sure you have bakeries in the Hamptons.”

He grinned. “Maybe you should bring your counter help back up front. Your cakeside manner needs a little work.”

“I'm direct. I find it saves a lot of time.”

“I represent Tommy Stiles. He's the one in need of your services.”

She burst out laughing. “I'm sorry but I thought you said Tommy Stiles.”

“I did.”

“As in Tommy Stiles and the After Life.” As in super-famous rock star who had been around forever.

“You've heard of him.”

Heard of him? That was like asking if you had heard of Elvis or the Beatles. She struggled to maintain her composure. “Of course. He's—uh, he's a singer.” A singer who had happened to make his bones alongside Springsteen and Joel, Stewart and Clapton.

Rafferty's hazel-gold eyes twinkled with amusement. “He'll be performing at the Borgata in Atlantic City next week and he wants you to handle the cakes for the after-party.”

She hated herself for asking the question but the “Why me?” slipped out just the same.

“Because you're the best between here and New York and Tommy only deals with the best.”

She had always believed in herself, but the fact that Tommy Stiles even knew she was on the same planet rendered her temporarily speechless.

Not to mention suspicious.

If Finn noticed, he didn't let on. “We'll supply rooms for you and your staff. Naturally you'll have full access to the kitchen's facilities. Whatever you need to get the job done, it's yours.”

“I usually bake the cakes here then schlep them to the site in the back of our van.” She started to laugh. “I wish you could see the look on your face.”

He had the good grace to look a little sheepish. “I'm from Jersey myself. I know these roads. How many casualties have there been?”

“I'll admit it gets a little hairy on the turnpike at rush hour but that's pretty much how it's done.”

“We know your going rate and because this is short notice, we're willing to sweeten the deal.”

“I'll—maybe I can—how about I work up a proposal and fax it over to you tonight.”

“I have a better idea. Why don't we hammer out the details right now. I didn't come all this way to go home empty-handed.”