Red Velvet Revenge (4 page)

Mel could have kicked her own behind. Tate and Angie had been her best friends since junior high school. The three of them had bonded over a love of old movies and junk food. Unbeknownst to Mel, Angie had carried a torch for Tate for years.

Like Mel, Tate had been completely oblivious right up
until Angie landed herself a rock-star boyfriend. Now he stood pining on the sidelines while she tried to figure out whether she was going to move to Los Angeles to live with Roach or not. He had never managed to gather up the courage to tell her how he felt, and it had become painful for Mel to watch the two of them, knowing that they loved each other but were too chicken to do anything about it.

“Well, with business being so slow and all,” Angie said, “I just thought we could take the time to…”

“Go to California?” Tate supplied.

“Or Canada,” Angie said. “Or Nepal. You know, there’s a whole great big world out there.”

“Uh-huh,” Mel and Tate said together.

“Look, if we’re going to do the rodeo, I need to know if you’re in, Angie,” Mel said. “I figure we’ll need to bring Oz, since it’s his truck, but space is limited, so we’re looking at just the three of us.”

“What?” a voice barked from the swinging door. “You can’t go without me.”

Marty stood, staring at them, looking outraged with his hands planted on his hips.

“We only have so much room, Marty,” Mel said.

“But I brokered the deal,” he said. “I’m the one who talked Slim into hiring you.”

“And I really appreciate it,” Mel said. “But you and Tate are going to have to stay behind. There’s just not enough room.”

“What?” Tate asked in an equally put-out voice. “But I’m a partner in this bakery. I demand to go.”

Mel looked at Angie. “Well, if you want to bag out, it looks like I’ll have plenty of help.”

“Oh, no, I’m totally going,” Angie said. “I’ve never been to a rodeo before.” Mel grinned. She knew it was selfish, but she was delighted that Angie had chosen the bakery and her over Roach.

“Well, that settles it, then,” Mel said. “You, me, and Oz. We just have to get the okay from his parents.”

Tate and Marty exchanged indignant looks. Tate pointed to the kitchen door behind Marty, then hooked his thumb at the back door and Marty gave a nod. Before Mel could figure out what they were up to, they were both lying on the floor of the kitchen, blocking the exits.

“What is this? Occupy Fairy Tale Cupcakes?!” Angie asked. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“We’re in protest mode,” Tate said. “We’re going limp and we’re going to lie here until you agree to let us come along.”

“Are you kidding me?” Mel asked. “What if I don’t give in? Are you going to hold your breath until you turn blue?”

She watched Tate lift his head and look at Marty. He raised his eyebrows in silent question, and Marty gave him a small nod.

“Thanks for the idea,” Marty said.

The kitchen door slammed into his side, and Marty grunted but held his ground. The kitchen door didn’t budge.

“Hey, the door is stuck,” Oz yelled from the other side.

“Yeah, we know. There’s a one-hundred-and-seventy-pound dust bunny blocking it,” Angie shouted back.

“One hundred and sixty-four pounds,” Marty corrected her.

“Whatever,” Angie said, making her hands into the shape of a
W
.

“
Clueless
.” Tate identified the movie quote from his supine position.

Mel and Angie looked at each other and the two men on the floor. This was a losing battle if ever there was one.

“All right, you can come,” Mel said. “But you may be riding on the roof to make room for the cupcakes, you have to take a shift selling cupcakes out of the van, and I don’t want to hear any whining. Deal?”

Marty and Tate sat up with matching grins and said, “Deal.”

“Why do I get the feeling I’m going to regret this?” Mel asked.

Four

“Are you sure Sal can have the van fixed in time for you to go?” Joe DeLaura asked.

Mel looked up from where she was squatting on the floor of her apartment’s tiny kitchenette, pouring milk into a saucer for her cat, Captain Jack.

Captain Jack was all white with a couple of black patches, one of which covered his left eye. He looked like quite the pirate and had a rogue’s temperament, so when they had rescued him from a Dumpster a few months ago and Angie had dubbed him Captain Jack, Mel hadn’t bothered to change it.

His purring, which sounded remarkably like an idling V8 engine getting ready for a drag race, increased as Mel stood and put the milk away in the fridge and the saucer was officially his.

“I don’t know,” Mel said. “I called Slim Hazard to tell— What?”

“Nothing,” Joe said with a grin. “I just really like his name.”

Mel smiled. Joe was sitting at the counter, watching her. He was in casual attire for a change, a fitted T-shirt and shorts. Being an assistant district attorney, he rocked the suit thing pretty much 24-7, and Mel always felt like she got the “real Joe” when he had the time to dress down and just be with her.

Given that it was still brutally hot outside, they were bunkered in her apartment, which was a snug eight hundred square feet, so it cooled easily.

She glanced out the window, noting that the sun hadn’t set yet and it was undoubtedly still turkey-roasting hot. Once the sun set, things would cool down—not much, but enough to make the idea of venturing outside seem less like being caught in an inferno’s back draft.

“I wish you could have seen Marty with him,” Mel said. “I haven’t seen a case of hero worship like that since my nephews saw the man in the giant rat suit walking around the Chuck E. Cheese.”

“I think Chuck E. is a mouse.”

“Either way,” she said. “I think Captain Jack could take him.”

They both looked down at the feline, whose purrs had turned into noisy slurps of joy.

“No question,” Joe agreed.

Mel circled the counter and sat down at the breakfast bar beside Joe. She reached for her glass of ice water and took a long sip, aware that Joe was watching her.

“Anyway, I told Slim we had to get the van fixed up, and he said not to worry and that they would make room for us no matter what. I noticed when we gave him a six-pack as a thank-you for giving us a lift that he has a sweet tooth and a weakness for my Death by Chocolates,” Mel said.

“I like him already,” Joe said.

He reached over and laced his fingers with hers. Despite the coolness of the apartment, it was still July in Arizona, and hugging was kept to a minimum.

“Angie has been badgering Sal about the van, while Oz has been spending his days at the dealership helping out,” Mel said.

“I didn’t know Oz knew anything about cars,” he said.

“He doesn’t,” she said. “I think he’s just watching over his baby chick.”

“Oz as mama hen. I like that.” Joe gave her his patent-worthy amused grin.

He absently ran his thumb over the inside of her wrist, and Mel felt her pulse kick up a notch. Honestly, all the man had to do was walk into a room and smile at her and she was as useless as a puddle on the floor. It had been like that since the first time she’d been flattened by his grin when she was in middle school and he was in high school.

Joe was the middle of Angie’s seven older brothers and had spent his life as the peacemaker of the rambunctious DeLaura clan. Mel had worshipped him from afar, never thinking he would see her as anything but his little sister’s pesky best friend.

But one day, he’d come to the bakery, upon Angie’s request, to offer Mel some legal advice, and just like that the
grin that had always made her knees turn to jelly had come to belong just to her.

For Mel, he had become her compass point. Whenever the self-doubt of adolescence snuck up behind her and her former chubby self tried to kick her in the pants and shatter her confidence, all she had to do was have Joe gaze at her through his lashes and give her his slow grin, that special look that she knew belonged just to her, and all of her insecurities melted like butter in the sun.

“I’m a little worried about how it’s going to shake out,” she confessed. “I mean, the van looked deader than dead when we left it.”

“Sal knows his cars,” Joe said. “If he thinks he can fix it, he probably can.”

“Yeah, but it had faded ice cream stickers on it and it reeked of sour milk,” Mel said. “When I asked Sal if there was any way we could clean out the interior or slap a fresh coat of paint on it, he said, ‘Don’t worry. I know a guy.’”

Mel looked warily at Joe. A few of the DeLaura brothers were well-known to Mel’s uncle Stan, who was a detective on the Scottsdale police force. They were known to him not because they had careers in law enforcement, but rather because they tended to operate on the fringes of the law. It was not something that made Joe happy.

“A guy, huh?” he asked.

“Yeah, so now I’m baking my behind off, trying to freeze several thousand cupcakes and make tubs of frosting, when I may have no place to store all of these cupcakes, and I could find myself selling cupcakes out of my nephews’ red rider wagon.”

“I’d buy one from your wagon.”

Mel laughed. Per usual he knew just what to say. Joe pulled her close, and for the moment all thoughts of the rodeo, the van, and the mountain of cupcakes that needed to be baked were forgotten.

Mel and Angie spent the following week baking until they dropped. The plan was to bake as much as they could, freeze the cupcakes, and then defrost them once they were up at the rodeo.

Mel tried to maintain her optimism. Angie checked in with Sal daily, and in his usual car-salesman suave, he assured them that the van would be ready and tricked out in ways they couldn’t imagine. Somehow, Mel did not find this as reassuring as Sal might think.

It was the day before they were to leave for the rodeo, and Mel and Angie surveyed their walk-in cooler at the bakery. There was a staggering amount of cupcakes in it. In fact, Mel was quite sure she had never seen so many cupcakes—not even at the annual Cupcake Love-In, a charity event held in Scottsdale every year.

“If Sal doesn’t come through…” Mel didn’t want to think about it.

“He’ll come through,” Angie said. “It may be with a king cab pickup truck and a refrigerator trailer, but he’ll come through.”

“Mel! Angie! Get out here!”

Mel and Angie exchanged a look and backed out of the walk-in.

“What is it?” Angie yelled back.

“Just hurry up!” Marty said.

“Maybe we have customers,” Mel suggested.

“Well, his yelling is going to put them off their cupcakes,” Angie said.

They sped up and pushed through the swinging kitchen door as one.

“What is it?” Mel asked.

But Marty wasn’t behind the counter where he was supposed to be; instead, he was at the front door.

Oz poked his head around the doorframe. He looked hot and sweaty, and the thick curtain of bangs that usually covered his eyes had been secured back by a blue bandanna. He caught sight of Mel and Angie and beamed.

“Are you ready for the big reveal?”

“You mean it’s done?” Mel asked. She felt her ribs compress into her chest with a nervous squeeze.

Oz nodded.

“He looks happy,” Angie said. “That’s a good sign, right?”

“He’s seventeen; it has four wheels and an engine. Of course he’s happy,” Marty said.

The three of them stepped out of the bakery into the midday heat. Mel had expected to see the van parked in front of the shop, since presently there was plenty of parking to be had.

Outside, however, there was a large coal gray lump with Angie’s brother Sal and a guy in a blue mechanic’s uniform, with the name Lou stitched onto the front of his shirt, standing beside it.

“Baby sister,” Sal said with a warm note of affection as he gave his sister a squeeze. “Didn’t I tell you I’d come through?”

Angie laughed as she squeezed him in return. “Yeah, you did.”

“This is Lou. He’s my guy,” Sal said.

“Nice to meet you.” Lou shook hands with Angie, Mel, and Marty.

“Thanks for helping with this, Lou,” Mel said. “We really appreciate it.”

“Oh, you have no idea,” Sal said. “Are you ready?”

Marty had wandered over to the van and was trying to lift the huge car cover to sneak a peek under it. Without turning away from them, Lou reached over and smacked Marty’s hand.